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Tag: Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel

Sharing the wealth

Virginia small businesses are getting a piece of the biggest highway construction pie ever baked by the Virginia Department of Transportation: the $3.9 billion Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel expansion project.

Since April 2019, VDOT has awarded 313 contracts worth a collective $455 million to companies that qualify under the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) and Small, Women-owned, and Minority-owned Business (SWaM) federal and state programs for government contractors.

“Thank God for this program,” says William André Gilliam, president of Metals of Distinction Inc., a Hampton-based welding and metal fabrication company that has so far been awarded $1.6 million in renewed contracts through DBE, a federal program run by the U.S. Department of Transportation. “I wish I could get more work like this, but unfortunately I only seem to get this kind of opportunity when there’s a requirement for DBE.”

The federal Department of Transportation designates DBE-qualified businesses, but certification is fully accepted throughout the state if a business is bidding for a contract in a project receiving federal transportation funds. SWaM certification, which is granted by the state Department of Small Business and Supplier Diversity, is needed for state contracts that don’t include federal funding.

Then-Gov. Ralph Northam directed executive branch agencies in 2019 to allocate more than 42% of discretionary spending to certified SWaM businesses, a policy that has not changed under Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

To qualify for DBE status, a company must meet certain criteria, including posting gross receipts not exceeding an annual average of $26.29 million over the previous three fiscal years. Also, business owners cannot have a personal net worth that exceeds $1.32 million, excluding equity in a primary residence and ownership interest in the company.

Among Virginia’s criteria to be certified as a small business for SWaM purposes, a company must be at least 51% independently owned, have fewer than 250 employees and report average annual gross receipts of $10 million or less for the past three years. To qualify as women- or minority-owned, companies must be majority-controlled by a woman or any person of minority ethnicity. In all three cases, the majority owners need to be U.S. citizens or legal resident aliens.

Queen Crittendon, VDOT’s civil rights manager for the Hampton Roads district, says SWaM- and DBE-certified businesses have important roles to play. Photo by Mark Rhodes

Road contracts

Typically, a certain percentage of work on large transportation projects such as the HRBT is allocated to DBE- or SWaM-certified vendors. 

The expansion of HRBT to four two-lane tunnels, which began construction in October 2020 and is expected to be finished in November 2025, pledged 12% of its contracts to DBE businesses and 20% to SWaM companies, says Brooke Grow, VDOT’s communication manager for the project.

As of early August, that goal had not been met, Grow notes, but the Hampton Roads Connector Partnership, the design-build joint venture running the project, “is tracking to achieve the established contract goals and demonstrates good-faith efforts in doing so.”

Queen Crittendon, VDOT’s civil rights manager for the Hampton Roads district, calls the inclusion of certified businesses “an important part of our culture. We want to ensure the maximum opportunity for small businesses to bid and participate in the procurement and contracting process. With the increase in federal transportation funding for highway and bridge improvement, VDOT will need the support of all businesses, including minority- and women-owned businesses, to meet the demands.”

Although out-of-state companies can apply for certification, Grow says 80% of the DBE/SWaM companies involved with the expansion project are based in Virginia, and 52% hail from Hampton Roads. 

One of those is Chesapeake-based Bryant-Ritter Hewitt Electric Corp., a 70-employee company founded in 2005. It has a contract through DBE and qualifies as both majority woman-owned and as a small business, says President Susan Ritter.

Her company has been DBE-certified for more than 10 years, and its contract is worth around $12 million for work performed over four years. 

It’s one of the three largest contracts the company has ever won and will involve several tasks, including installing around 50 overhead sign structures along the revamped span.

Ritter says state procurement programs for businesses like hers are “critically important. They’ve allowed our company to grow tremendously in both size and scope.” She adds that it’s “an honor” for her company to be working on the HRBT, which opened in 1957.

Since Bryant-Ritter Hewitt received its certification, Ritter says, DBE contracts have made it possible for the company to expand from mostly local work to larger jobs in the Richmond area and now a major project in Maryland: assisting with the replacement of the Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge, which spans the Potomac River, connecting the Northern Neck to southern Maryland.

Gilliam, too, says that DBE contracts have been invaluable to his business, which was started by his father in 1969. In 1999, Gilliam took over the welding company, which now has  12 employees, including Gilliam and his wife. Before winning contracts for work on the HRBT expansion, Metals of Distinction was awarded contracts associated with the expansion of the Midtown Tunnel that connects Norfolk and Portsmouth, and which was completed in 2017.

Working on big projects isn’t a magic bullet for future success — Gilliam says that “after the Midtown Tunnel, it seemed like no one knew who I was, so I had to get back out and grind at my business” — but he is thankful to be part of the HRBT expansion. His single $25,000 contract has been renewed dozens of times and has generated between $1.4 million and $1.6 million during the past two years. 

“I just wish other contractors could see how I operate my business,” he says. “With these contracts, at least I’m able to prove myself worthy.”  

Digging in

As the largest highway construction project in state history, the $3.8 billion Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel expansion is without question the most notable road project currently underway in Virginia.

Construction began in October 2020, and workers made a lot of progress last year, remaining on track to reach the Virginia Department of Transportation’s goal of a November 2025 finish date. Upon completion, the bridge and tunnel system will have six lanes and four two-lane tunnels on the 9.9-mile Interstate 64 corridor between Norfolk and Hampton. The expansion is designed to reduce congestion, improve access to the Port of Virginia and create more emergency evacuation routes.

Additionally, one mile of I-64 in Hampton and four miles in Norfolk will be widened to include an express lane and a drivable shoulder in each direction that will be variably priced tolled lanes.

Crews will use a $70 million, custom-built tunnel boring machine (TBM) to carve out an underwater path for the tunnels, which will be about 50 feet deeper than the current tunnels. HRBT is the fourth U.S. roadway project to use a TBM. The machine’s front end has a 46-foot-diameter cutterhead that will create an approximately 45-foot-wide opening. The machine, named “Mary” after Mary Winston Jackson, the late NASA mathematician and aerospace engineer depicted in the 2016 film “Hidden Figures,” was being assembled this spring, with excavation scheduled to start this summer.

Crews nearly doubled the size of North Island and have begun work to build the receiving pit for the TBM. On the South Island, crews are working to excavate down more than 70 feet.

Crews are also working on replacing or rebuilding more than two dozen bridges and have installed hundreds of piles that will form the foundation of new marine trestle bridges.

The project’s design-build contractor is Hampton Roads Connector Partners — a joint venture led by New York-based Dragados USA Inc. and including Vinci Construction, Flatiron Construction Corp. and Vinci subsidiary Dodin Campenon Bernard.

Other major ongoing transportation projects around the commonwealth include:


NORTHERN VIRGINIA
Improve 95, Transform 66 projects

As part of its Improve 95 plan to relieve congestion, the state government entered into a $1 billion public-private partnership with Transurban, an Australian toll-road operations company with its U.S. headquarters in Alexandria. The Fredericksburg Extension (Fred Ex) project will extend Interstate 95 express lanes about 10 miles south to Exit 133 in Stafford County, and Transurban will operate and maintain the lanes and charge variable usage tolls in a contract that extends until 2087. Construction on the $565 million project started in spring 2019.

As of March, the project is running behind its scheduled opening date this year, and the completion date for contracted construction is now set for 2023. Developers say the extension will provide 66% more capacity during peak periods.

Further north, the Virginia Department of Transportation, the state Department of Rail and Public Transportation and I-66 Express Mobility Partners are working on the $3.7 billion Transform 66 Outside the Beltway project, which will build 22.5 miles of new express lanes alongside Interstates 66 and 495. The lanes are scheduled to open in December. The project also includes improved bus service and transit routes, expanded park and ride lots, interchange improvements and 11 miles of new bike and pedestrian trails.


SHENANDOAH/ SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA
Interstate 81 improvements, Coalfields Expressway

The $2.2 billion Interstate 81 Corridor Improvement Program consists of 64 planned improvements to the 325-mile corridor from Bristol to Winchester. Focused on safety and reliability, the project includes bridge replacements, ramp extensions, highway widening, curb improvements and additional auxiliary lanes. The program has a 2031 completion date, and improvements are in varying stages. One recently completed project is the replacement of nearly 60-year-old bridges over Reed Creek in Wythe County, which concluded in September 2021.

The Coalfields Expressway (CFX) — U.S. Route 121 — is a proposed 115-mile highway to improve transportation connectivity between Southwest Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky, boosting commerce and tourism. A 2021 report by Richmond-based Chmura Economics & Analytics estimated the CFX’s cumulative economic impact during a 50-year span would be $12.8 billion in 2021 dollars, based largely on largely on construction spending and new service businesses expected to locate along the route. Seven miles of the expressway overlap U.S. Route 460 and are the only miles of Virginia’s roughly 50-mile portion of the CFX funded so far.

In January, VDOT announced a $207 million agreement to construct a two-mile section of U.S. 460 that will extend from near state Route 604 to the existing Route 460 in Grundy. Construction is expected to begin in late 2022 or early 2023. As for the rest of the expressway, supporters say they need more federal funding. In March, the U.S. House included $1.99 million in its fiscal 2022 federal spending bill, now law, for planning, budgeting and design work on expanding the CFX from Grundy to West Virginia.  

This article has been corrected since publication.

A sampling of Virginia’s major road projects

HAMPTON ROADS
Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel Expansion Project

Construction on the $3.8 billion Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) expansion — the largest highway construction project in Virginia’s history — began in October 2020. The project will widen the four-lane segments of the 9.9-mile Interstate 64 corridor in Norfolk and Hampton to six lanes and create twin two-lane tunnels underwater across the harbor.

Crews will use a $70 million custom-built tunnel boring machine (TBM) to carve out an underwater path for the tunnels. HRBT is the fourth U.S. roadway project to use a TBM. The machine’s front end has a 46-foot-diameter cutterhead that will create an approximately 45-foot-wide opening. The TBM, named “Mary” after Mary Winston Jackson, the late NASA mathematician and aerospace engineer depicted in the 2016 film “Hidden Figures,” will be assembled and readied to start excavation by mid-2022. The entire project is scheduled for completion in November 2025.

 


NORTHERN VIRGINIA
Improve 95, Transform 66 projects

As part of its Improve 95 plan to relieve congestion, the state government entered into a $1 billion public-private partnership with Transurban, an Australian toll-road operations company with its U.S. headquarters in Alexandria. The Fredericksburg Extension (Fred Ex) project will extend Interstate 95 express lanes about 10 miles south to Exit 133 in Stafford County, and Transurban will operate and maintain the lanes and charge variable usage tolls in a contract that extends until 2087. Construction on the $565 million project started in spring 2019. The project is behind its scheduled opening date for this year. The current schedule is under review, and the completion date for contracted construction is now set for 2023. Developers say the extension will provide 66% more capacity during peak periods.

Further north, the Virginia Department of Transportation, the state Department of Rail and Public Transportation and I-66 Express Mobility Partners are working on the $3.7 billion Transform 66 Outside the Beltway project, which will build 22.5 miles of new express lanes alongside interstates 66 and 495. The lanes are scheduled to open in December. The project also includes improved bus service and transit routes, expanded park and ride lots, interchange improvements and 11 miles of new bike and pedestrian trails.


SHENANDOAH/SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA
Interstate 81 improvements, Coalfields Expressway

The $2.2 billion Interstate 81 Corridor Improvement Program consists of 64 planned improvements to the 325-mile corridor from Bristol to Winchester, resulting from a 2018 state study. Focused on safety and reliability, the project includes bridge replacements, ramp extensions, highway widening, curb improvements and additional auxiliary lanes. The program has a 2031 completion date, and improvements are in varying stages. One recently completed project is the replacement of nearly 60-year-old bridges over Reed Creek in Wythe County, which concluded in September 2021.

The Coalfields Expressway — U.S. Route 460/121 — will run through Southwest Virginia and southern West Virginia, boosting commerce and tourism. In January, VDOT announced a $207 million agreement to construct a 2-mile section of U.S. 460 that will extend from near Route 604 to the existing Route 460 in Grundy. Construction is expected to begin in late 2022 or early 2023. 

HRBT expansion boring? Yes and no

Already the largest project ever tackled by the Virginia Department of Transportation, the $3.8 billion Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel expansion will kick into gear later this year when a $70 million custom-built tunnel boring machine (TBM) begins carving out an underwater path for twin two-lane tunnels.

Construction on the HRBT expansion, which will increase tunnel and roadway capacity along 9.9 miles of Interstate 64 between Hampton and Norfolk, began in October 2020 and is scheduled for completion in November 2025. 

It’s only the fourth time that a tunnel boring machine will be used on a U.S. roadway project, including tunnels in Seattle, Miami and the Parallel Thimble Shoal Tunnel under construction at the nearby Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.

Standing the height of a four-story building and measuring the length of a football field, the TBM’s front end consists of a 46-foot-diameter rotating cutterhead that bores through soil and rock strata as it creates an approximately 45-foot-wide opening for the new tunnels. Virginia Beach middle schoolers dubbed the machine “Mary” after Mary Winston Jackson, the late NASA mathematician and aerospace engineer depicted in the 2016 film “Hidden Figures.”

Hampton Roads Connector Partners, a joint venture led by Dragados USA Inc., is the design-build team for the project. It contracted with German firm Herrenknecht AG to fabricate the boring machine, which arrived at the Port of Virginia aboard three vessels in December. Crews have been preparing a 70-foot-deep launch pit on South Island, near Norfolk, where the TBM will be assembled and readied to start excavation by mid-2022.

“We are working aggressively to get the launch pit ready,” says James Utterback, VDOT’s project director for the HRBT expansion. “This is one large project that has a series of big projects inside it and lots of unique construction operations that need to come together.”

Once underway, a hydraulic cylinder will move the TBM about 50 feet per day as the cutterhead bores a two-lane tunnel to North Island, near Hampton, a process expected to take about a year. At North Island, it will take 4 to 6 months to rotate the machine on a specially built turntable in preparation for its return trip, boring a parallel twin two-lane tunnel to South Island. The return trip is expected to take 10 to 12 months, with the total process taking about 2½ years.

HRBT tunnel boring machine’s name will be ‘Mary’

Chosen from several entries submitted by Hampton Roads area middle school students, the massive underwater tunnel boring machine (TBM) that arrives later this year to dig new tunnels for the $3.8 billion Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel expansion project will be named Mary, in honor of Mary Winston Jackson, a NASA scientist depicted in “Hidden Figures.”

St. Gregory the Great Catholic School students entered the name in a contest held by the Virginia Department of Transportation to name the tunnel boring machine, which is set to arrive this fall. Project officials announced the name Wednesday morning. The winning group of students from the Virginia Beach school created a video explaining why the machine should bear Jackson’s name. “We wanted to pick a female scientist that had a relationship with our area,” said one student, while another said he was “just extremely surprised we won.”

Jackson, who was born in 1921 in Hampton, was a mathematician and engineer who was hired to work at NASA’s Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in 1951 as a human “computer.” After two years, Jackson was hired to work for an engineer in Langley’s Supersonic Pressure Tunnel. In 1958, she became NASA’s first Black female engineer, and she retired in 1985. She died in 2005 at the age of 83. Jackson was played by actress/singer Janelle Monáe in the 2016 movie “Hidden Figures,” which also includes portrayals of her colleagues Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan.

The TBM is being built in Germany under specifications for the Bridge-Tunnel; it will be brought in pieces to the South Island this fall. When assembled, it will be about 46 feet in diameter and 350 feet long — roughly the height of a three-story building and the length of a football field. According to VDOT and the Hampton Roads Connection Partners (HRCP), the joint venture responsible for design and construction work on the HRBT expansion, digging will begin in early 2022 and conclude in 2024. The entire project, which is expected to be completed in 2025, will increase tunnel and interstate capacity along 9.9 miles of Interstate 64 between Hampton and Norfolk, digging two new two-lane tunnels and building four new lanes across the water, as well as adding lanes on connecting roads.

HRCP is a joint venture led by New York-based Dragados USA Inc. and includes Vinci Construction, Flatiron Construction Corp. and Vinci subsidiary Dodin Campenon Bernard.

The name Mary will be prominently displayed on the TBM during the project, said José Martin Alos, HRCP’s project executive, who noted it’s considered good luck to name the tunnel boring machine before work starts. The HRBT expansion is only the fourth project in the United States involving a TBM.

Here’s the name announcement video:

 

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The big dig commences

Crews broke ground Thursday on the $3.8 billion Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) expansion  — the largest project in the Virginia Department of Transportation’s history and one of the largest infrastructure projects in the nation. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam joined state and local leaders in a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday morning, marking the commencement of the project. 

The project will increase tunnel and interstate capacity along 9.9 miles of Interstate 64 between Hampton and Norfolk in order to reduce congestion and improve access to the Port of Virginia.

“For too long, traffic in the Hampton Roads region has bottlenecked at the tunnel,” Northam said in a statement. “Folks in this region deserve an easier, more reliable commute. This is the largest project in our history, and it will ensure that people can move around faster, that commerce flows more easily, and that we finally connect the Peninsula and the Southside. This project will make everyone’s lives easier when it is completed.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXi6KbJZtuU&feature=youtu.be

Video courtesy VDOT

Using new tunnel-excavation technology, twin two-lane tunnels (approximately 50 feet deeper than the current tunnels) will be constructed west of the existing eastbound tunnel and more than two dozen marine bridges will be replaced. The four-lane sections of the Interstate 64 corridor between Settlers Landing Road in Hampton and the Phoebus shoreline and the four-lane section of I-64 in Norfolk between the Willoughby shoreline and the I-564 interchange will be widened to six lanes. A third lane and a drivable shoulder in each direction will also be added. The completed project — which is expected for 2025 — will include a total of eight lanes across the water.

“The world’s best designers, builders, engineers and technology are converging here in Virginia to build your new tunnel,” Secretary of Transportation Shannon Valentine said in a statement . “We are bringing every asset to the table to give people what they may value most — time.”

Funding for the project was provided by the commonwealth of Virginia, the Hampton Roads Transportation Accessibility Commission (HRTAC), federal and local partners.

The design-build team for the project is Hampton Roads Connector Partners (HRCP), a joint venture led by New York-based Dragados USA Inc. and including Vinci Construction, Flatiron Construction Corp. and Vinci subsidiary Dodin Campenon Bernard.

Crews will use new tunnel-boring technology to dig through soil and construct tunnel segments. The HRBT is only the fourth roadway project to use the equipment in the nation. Machinery is under construction in Germany and is expected to arrive in Hampton Roads in 2021 for assembly. Tunneling operations are expected to commence in early 2022.

“VDOT is using this advanced boring technology for the first time ever,” VDOT Commissioner Stephen Brich said in a statement. “We’re doing it because this is one of the nation’s most important maritime channels, and this technology means less disruption to military and commercial activity, and less impact on marine life.” 

 

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VDOT OKs work to begin on $3.8B Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel expansion

The Virginia Department of Transportation has issued its approval for the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel’s five-year, $3.8 billion expansion to proceed, VDOT announced Thursday.

Hampton Roads Connector Partners (HRCP) received a notice to proceed for the project, allowing the builder to start interstate and tunnel work in the 9.9-mile corridor. Some preparations have started for the largest roadways project in Virginia’s history and one of the biggest nationally, which will add twin two-lane tunnels next to two existing tunnels.

HRCP, a joint venture led by New York-based Dragados USA Inc. and including Vinci Construction, Flatiron Construction Corp., Vinci subsidiary Dodin Campenon Bernard and designers HDR and Mott MacDonald, won the contract for the project, expected to conclude in 2025. It will double the number of lanes in the bridge-tunnel and ease traffic, VDOT says. HRCP received state and federal permits last month to start work in the waterways and along Interstate 64 between Hampton and Norfolk. Geotechnical borings and staging work on the HRBT South Island for a tunnel boring machine (TBM) began this summer.

The TBM, which will excavate the two tunnels, is expected to launch from the island in 2022, according to VDOT. The project also includes widening of several adjoining bridges, starting early next year. Two lanes open to traffic will be maintained in both directions during construction.

With the notice to proceed, the project moves into more detailed design and construction phases, according to HRBT Expansion Project Director Jim Utterback. “Acquiring the permits for a project of this magnitude in 16 months was a remarkable effort,” he added in a statement Thursday.

The Hampton Roads Transportation Accountability Commission oversees funding, which is financed with regional sales- and gas-tax revenue and includes $200 million from the state’s Smart Scale transportation prioritization program. Comprehensive and funding agreements for the project were signed in April 2019.

 

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Dewberry to provide QA for $3.8B Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel project

Fairfax-based engineering consulting firm Dewberry announced Friday it will provide quality assurance services for the entire $3.8 billion Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) project — the largest construction project in Virginia and the Virginia Department of Transportation’s (VDOT) history. 

A contract amount was not disclosed.

The Interstate 64 HRBT is currently 3.5 miles long and has two-lane tunnels which connect artificial islands with trestle bridges to shore. The expansion is expected to take five years and will include twin two-lane bored tunnels, which will increase capacity for traffic. Tunnel boring machines are being used for only the fourth time in the nation to complete the project. 

“This design-build project requires a robust quality program and our team, working in collaboration with the tunnel contractor and VDOT, will help deliver a successful construction project,” Dave Mahoney, Dewberry executive vice president, said in a statement. “The two new tunnels and bridge/roadway improvements will have a huge impact on traffic safety and ease the congestion in such a populated area of Virginia.”  

In February 2019, Hampton Roads Connector Partners, a joint venture led by New York-based Dragados USA, won the design-build contract for the project. This spring and early summer, workers relocated utilities on South Island and shifted lanes on the south-approach trestle, with North Island expansion set to start in October. To keep thousands of royal terns and other nesting seabirds out of the way of construction on South Island, a pack of 20 trained border collies are patrolling the island redirecting seabirds to a new, safe nesting ground at Fort Wool, an island off the coast of Norfolk. 

The Willoughby Bridge is scheduled for widening starting in January 2021, followed by replacement of the north and south trestles in February, as well as the widening of the Oastes Creek Bridge. Next March and April the Mason Creek Bridge is set to be widened, and the Mallory Street Bridge will be replaced. 

Land and tunnel work will happen simultaneously, with land work beginning this year and tunneling beginning in 2022. Underwater drilling will happen 24 hours per day, two years into the project. The Hampton Roads Transportation Accountability Commission is the primary funding agent for this project, using local revenue from sales and gasoline taxes in the Hampton Roads Transportation Fund.

Founded in 1956, Dewberry offers engineering, geospatial, survey, mapping, environmental and construction services to government and commercial clients. The company employs a total of 2,000 people across more than 50 locations. Last year, it reported $470.8 million in revenue.

 

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