OOCEA Adds Capacity to East-West Expressway

$450 Million Reconstruction Effort is Progressing With Multiple Contracts

By Debra Wood

“The boost in growth is well beyond the road’s original design capacity,” says Ben Dreiling, OOCEA’s director of construction. “We wanted to come up with a solution that not only relieved congestion but also do it in a manner that enhanced the community.”

The toll road bisects Orlando, providing access to downtown from the community’s burgeoning suburbs. When originally built it divided communities. Homes still line the road along certain segments. OOCEA anticipates traffic volume will reach 175,000 within the next 10 years.

The reconstruction effort includes adding one lane in each direction, auxiliary lanes between exits and converting from traditional toll plazas to open-road tolling. Escalating construction and right-of-way costs forced the authority to scale back the project from the entire 16-mi length to a 12-mi section from Hiawassee Road to Goldenrod Road. Three more projects east of Goldenrod are planned but not funded. Those are currently estimated at about $300 million.

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The Western East-West

One of the first contracts under this overall program went to Martin K. Eby Construction Co. of Maitland, Fla., for a section just west of Interstate 4. The contractor started on the section, which runs from Tampa Avenue to I-4, in September of 2003. (Eby has since been sold to and become part of Lane Construction Corp. of Meriden, Conn.)

Eby/Lane completed widening the $28 million, 1-mi section near the city’s Citrus Bowl in 2006. It was Lane’s first of three jobs on the East-West.

Orlando-based Hubbard Construction Co. handled a neighboring $74 million, 4.3-mi segment between Tampa Avenue and Hiawassee that included widening the freeway and replacing the Holland West toll plaza with an open-road tolling station and two traditional tollbooth locations, one in each direction off the main roadway. The project also included construction of a toll-collection building and a steel-truss pedestrian bridge, for expressway officials to reach the toll plaza on the opposite side. 

The I-4 interchange

To improve safety, the Florida Department of Transportation has redesigned the East-West interchange with I-4, eliminating the current mergers of this well-known downtown bottleneck

PCL Civil Constructors of Tampa began work in April 2006 on its $119 million, 900-day contract to build an interim interchange project for the East-West with I-4. The contract includes $6.5 million in early-completion incentives. The total cost of the job, including right-of-way, design, utility relocation and CEI comes to $228 million.

“We are building 13 new bridges and ramps at the interchange to help the flow of traffic,” says Loreen Choate, project manager with the Florida Department of Transportation..

The project includes new westbound and eastbound ramps to eastbound I-4, reconstruction of the Anderson Street Bridge, closing of several exit and entrance ramps and creation of new ones, improvement of the drainage system and the conversion of some one-way downtown Orlando streets to two-way traffic.

The two largest ramps, the East-West westbound to I-4 eastbound and East-West eastbound to I-4 eastbound, are 16 spans and 11 spans respectively. PCL has 500 days to build the first ramp and 580 days for the second one.

“It’s been an interesting interchange because it’s in the middle of an urban area,” Choate says. “We’ve had to deal with a lot of utilities.”

The location has necessitated phasing to avoid disruption of traffic.

“We’re building within 11 ft of an existing building and taking 200-ton girders in these places with big cranes,” says Gary Dale, senior project manager with PCL.  

OOCEA says it contributed $50 million toward improving the interchange with I-4, which helped accelerate design work. FDOT is managing the construction project and anticipates completion in September 2008.

Once FDOT widens I-4, possibly in 2011 or 2012, more interchange improvements will take place, making it a four-tier interchange.

“When they designed what we’re currently building, they knew that job was coming later,” Choate says. “We will be able to use everything we are building now. We’re going to add to it.”

East of I-4

On the east side of the interstate, Lane expects to finish a $60 million, 2-mi-long, multiphase widening project, from I-4 to Crystal Lake Drive in July.

The job began in March 2005 and required removing the existing concrete, building a roadbed and paving the new and existing roadway with asphalt. The new configuration, built entirely within existing right-of-way, required the old concrete to come up.

The authority determined asphalt was more cost effective than repaving with concrete. Lane added two directions of 9-ft travel lanes in the median, with the balance of the additional lanes built to the outside. Lane crushed the old concrete and used it as a base for the new road.

The project also included widening of multiple bridges over surface streets.

OOCEA integrated architectural precast elements, such as exposed-aggregate logos, more commonly used in vertical projects than in heavy construction, to make the road more attractive.

The authority added 25- to 30-ft sound walls along the highway. Cast-in-place sections, consuming 25,000 cu yds of concrete, were painted to complement the precast. Lane created storm drainage and ponds and used some of the dirt for embankments and behind the sound walls. The company moved 90,000 cu yds of soil.

Lane began construction in October on the biggest piece of the project to date, a $125.1 million, 2-mi segment from Conway Road to Goldenrod Road.

“This is a big job,” says Gary Jerabek, senior project manager for Lane. “Because of the multiple phasing, it’s probably one of the most difficult jobs out here.”

The project includes removing the existing 14-lane Holland East toll plaza and constructing a toll plaza that will allow cars with electronic toll collection tags to pass at full speed and other vehicles to enter a more traditional payment booth, reconfiguring the SR 436 exits and entrances, replacing the existing four-span bridge over S.R. 436 with a 200-ft clear span and adding a ramp for Andes Avenue.  

Again, the old concrete will come up and the road repaved with asphalt. The project requires 28,000 cu yds of concrete for bridges and walls and creation of 27,000 ft of storm drainage. It is scheduled for completion in October 2009.

OOCEA expects to begin taking bids in April for the next segment of the East-West project, widening of the bridge over Lake Underhill, which was redesigned to eliminate some costs. The project includes construction of a braided ramp at Crystal Lake Drive and Conway Road, bridges at Crystal Lake Drive and Lake Underhill Road and a pedestrian bridge. The original plan called for building two more bridges, one in each direction, while keeping the current bridges. Now the plans call for widening the existing two bridges, which will save on foundations, concrete and steel.

The authority expects the new bids to come in between $80 million and $90 million and work to start later this summer.

East West Expressway Project Teams
Owner: Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority
Contractors: Lane Construction Corp. of Meriden, Conn.; Hubbard Construction, Orlando
General Engineering Consultant: PBSJ, Orlando

I-4/East-West Interchange Project Team
Owner: Florida Department of Transportation
Contractor: PCL Civil Constructors, Tampa
Program Manager: HNTB, Lake Mary, Fla.

Useful Sources:
Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority
http://www.oocea.com/futureplans/projectsandstudies/projects_stateroad408.shtml

Transformation
http://trans4mation.org/