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Tag: Hampton Roads Connector Partners

A sampling of Virginia’s major road projects

HAMPTON ROADS

Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel Expansion Project

Work continues on Virginia’s largest highway construction project, the $3.9 billion Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) expansion. The contract ends in November 2025, but the contractor — Hampton Roads Connector Partners, a joint venture led by Dragados USA Inc. — was about 11 months behind in January, according to the Virginia Department of Transportation. VDOT hasn’t changed the contract completion date and says the department “will continue to work with the contractor to mitigate any production delays.”

The project will widen the four-lane segments of the 9.9-mile Interstate 64 corridor between Norfolk and Hampton to six lanes on land and eight over the water with twin two-lane tunnels. Marine work laying bases for bridge trestles is ongoing.

Crews will use a $70 million custom-built tunnel boring machine (TBM) to carve out underwater paths. In June 2022, contractors finished excavating 118,000 cubic yards of soil for the TBM launch pit. In fall 2022, workers reassembled 170 pieces of the TBM on the South Island in the pit. Work on the receiving pit on the North Island is ongoing, and VDOT anticipates boring will begin in spring.

NORTHERN VIRGINIA

Improve 95

As part of the Improve 95 plan to address 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 $565 million Fredericksburg Extension (Fred Ex) project will extend Interstate 95 express lanes about 10 miles south to Exit 133 in Stafford County. Transurban will operate and maintain the lanes, charging variable usage tolls in a contract that continues until 2087. Construction on the project started in spring 2019. The project’s expected completion was initially late 2022 but became late 2023 due to construction delays.

SHENANDOAH/SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA

Interstate 81 improvements, Coalfields Expressway

Resulting from a 2018 study, the $2.7 billion Interstate 81 Corridor Improvement Program lists 64 planned upgrades targeting safety and reliability along the 325-mile corridor from Bristol to Winchester. It’s scheduled for completion in 2033. Improvements include interchange ramp upgrades, highway widening and auxiliary lanes. Projects are in varying stages. A recently completed project is the 0.8-mile ramp extension from Route 11 onto northbound I-81 at exit 47 in Marion that opened to traffic in July 2022. VDOT traffic engineers estimated that the extension could reduce crashes by up to 77%.

The 115-mile, $4 billion Coalfields Expressway — U.S. Route 460/121 — is slated to run through Southwest Virginia and southern West Virginia, boosting commerce and tourism. About 50 miles of the proposed expressway would run through Virginia. Construction is underway on a $207 million 2-mile section of U.S. Route 460 that will extend from near Route 604 to the existing Route 460 in Grundy, with an expected completion date in December. The federal government’s fiscal 2023 spending bill allocated $7 million to VDOT for CFX design and construction, which the state plans to use to widen the 2-mile section to four lanes. Construction is set to start in March and end in December 2023.   

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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