Tampa Airport Interchange

$205 million project has a ‘little bit of everything’

By Debra Wood

Designed to improve traffic flow and access to Tampa International Airport, a $205 million State Road 60 interchange upgrade will create dedicated through lanes and eliminate traffic signals to ease congestion.

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This project has a little bit of everything,” says Bill Adams, with PB of Tampa, which is providing construction engineering and inspection services.

The 3-mi-long Tampa Airport Interchanges project for the Florida Department of Transportation includes construction of a four-level interchange at Spruce Street, designed by URS of San Francisco, and a three-level interchange at the Courtney Campbell Causeway, engineered by PBS&J in Tampa.

FDOT divided the project because of its large size, says Gerald Cavallaro, the agency’s construction project manager. However, it bid construction as one project to allow easier traffic flow coordination during construction, adds Milton Weatherred, project manager for contractor Flatiron-Tidewater Skanska, a joint venture between Flatiron Constructors of Longmont, Colo., and Tidewater Skanska of Virginia Beach, Va.

Having two different designers did present some problems because “details from one portion of the project are at times different from the other, which increases the complexity and coordination,” Weatherred says.

Work progresses at both interchanges simultaneously. The new configuration will eliminate signals at the Courtney Campbell interchange and at the entrance to the nearby Grand Hyatt Hotel. A two-lane frontage road system will provide access to the Hyatt property. There will be dedicated through lanes for State Road 60 access to Interstate 275 and the Veterans Expressway.

“Those are the major components that should enable us to move traffic more efficiently through that area,” says John McShaffrey, spokesperson for FDOT.

Crews will build 21 bridges; collector/distributor roads; and four different types of retaining walls, including 69,000 sq yds of mechanically stabilized earth walls. The contractor also will mitigate sea grass lost to the roadwork.

The job will require 2.3 million cu yds of earthwork, which includes importing 1.5 million cu yds of dirt. The rest will be excavated to create a network of retention ponds and to eliminate existing ramps and reused onsite to build new ramp approaches.

The project will consume 82,400 cu yds of concrete. Eighteen of the bridges are steel girders and the balance concrete. The tallest is a little more than 60 ft high.

“Most of the ones that are concrete are single spans,” Weatherred says. “The limitation for a span in a concrete girder is around 125 ft. Then the economics and the engineering say you should go to steel.”

Flatiron-Tidewater Skanska began work in August 2005 and expects to finish it by May 2010.

“We are currently building one of the largest and highest bridges in the project, and that’s really changing the landscape,” Weatherred says. “It’s to a point where you can see it coming together and how the ramps are going to work.”

The contract includes numerous no-excuses bonuses and incentives/disincentives. The construction team will earn the full $205 million if it opens certain ramps and bridges to traffic before the 2009 Super Bowl, signals come down on schedule and certain weekend rerouting wraps up within the designated time period.

“The only day they don’t work is Sunday during the day,” Cavallaro says. “In order to get these bonuses it will require additional work on the contractor’s part.”

Flatiron-Tidewater Skanska met the first incentive last year, completing an aviation approach lighting structure for the airport.

Avoiding Air Traffic Conflicts

Work near the airport’s south runway must take place during a midnight to 4 a.m. window, so as not to interfere with aircraft operations. The close proximity also affects deliveries of girders, which must be hoisted off the truck with a crane.

“Everything we do is either put in plans or we adjust to some of this as we go along to make sure (airport) operations are not impacted,” McShaffrey says.

When the runway is open, nothing can penetrate an imaginary vertical space identified by the Federal Aviation Administration.

“Crane [operators] have to constantly check the location and height of the cranes to make sure they are not going to penetrate that imaginary surface.” Adams says. “If they have a need to penetrate that surface, we have to coordinate with the airport, and the runway has to be shut down.”

The runway cannot close until the last flight arrives. Delayed incoming planes have sometimes prevented timely closures.

Keeping Road Traffic Flowing

In addition to avoiding flight disruptions, contractors must maintain vehicular traffic in the high-volume area, which means no daytime road closures.

“There are more than 30 detours implemented throughout the project to shift traffic and get access to portions of the work,” Weatherred says. “The biggest challenge is to coordinate all the phasing. Quite often we are erecting bridges over existing roadways, and we have to do it within a four-hour window at night because of the commitment to leaving the existing roadways intact in existing traffic patterns.”

Lane closures typically take place between 8:30 p.m. and 5:30 a.m., with detours restricted to between midnight and 4 a.m.

In July, about 230 Flatiron-Tidewater Skanska hourly workers and 40 management staff were working on the project. Weatherred said total employment peaked at about 300.

Flatiron-Tidewater Skanska is self-performing the foundation work, concrete bridges and concrete substructures, piers, caps and decks on the steel bridges. It has subcontracted the reinforcing steel, steel-girder erection, asphalt paving, slip-form barriers, electrical work, signage and landscaping.

“We have quite a team working to get this done,” Weatherred says. “It will be an accomplishment to get it done before the required completion date.”

Useful Sources:

Tampa Bay Interstates
http://www.mytbi.com

Team Box:

Owner: Florida Department of Transportation
Contractor: Flatiron-Tidewater Skanska, a joint venture between Flatiron Constructors of Longmont, Colo., and Tidewater Skanska of Virginia Beach, Va.
Engineers: URS, San Francisco, and PBS&J, Tampa