Demonstration Project Saves Lives and Time

By Tony Illia

A number of haunting, painted wood crosses decorated with roses, ribbons and photos lines U.S. Highway 70 meandering through New Mexico's Hondo Valley. They are called descansos, the Spanish term for a roadside memorial, and the lovingly fashioned markers commemorate the loss of a friend or family member from an automobile accident. Now, thanks to a design-build demonstration project, descansos may become a relic of the past.

Over the past five years, there have been 26 fatalities on a 38-mile section of U.S. 70 between Riverside and Ruidoso Downs. The two-lane road plays a key role in New Mexico's southeastern transportation grid, passing through six counties and several large cities. Currently, about 4,027 vehicles a day travel the narrow winding stretch of highway, with commercial trucks accounting for 22% of the traffic. The vehicle volume is expected to increase to 6,222 vehicles daily by 2024. U.S. 70 is specifically identified in the state's long range comprehensive transportation plan as one of 12 priority corridors in need of improvement.

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On June 18, 2002, the New Mexico Dept. of Transportation (NMDOT) embarked on a major widening effort by awarding a $129.5-million, lump-sum, design-build contract to Sierra Blanca Constructors, a joint venture of Granite Construction Co. Inc., Watsonville, Calif.; Sundt Construction Inc., Tucson, Ariz.; and James Hamilton Construction Co. Inc., Silver City, N.M. Other team members include URS Corp., San Francisco, as lead designer, and The Kleinfelder Group Inc., San Diego, as geotechnical engineer. The work is one of two design-build demonstration projects approved by the New Mexico State legislature in 1999.

Championed by former transportation Secretary Pete K. Rahn, House Bill 506 allows NMDOT to test design-build's effectiveness as an alternative delivery system in two sample cases between fiscal years 1999 and 2003. Authorization to use federal funds on the projects was given by the Federal Highway Administration (FHwA) under the Special Experimental Projects No. 14 (SEP-14) process. The other design-build test project was a $20.7-million, 2.32-mile-long widening of N.M. 528 in Rio Rancho, which finished two months early in October 2003. A.S. Homer Inc., Albuquerque, and Wilson & Co., Engineers & Architects, Albuquerque, served as the design-build team. "The authority was very broad so we could choose any two projects as long as they would be representative of other projects in the state," says Rahn, who now serves as vice president of government relations for Contech Construction Products Inc., Middleton, Ohio. "Using design-build on the U.S. 70 project will save us up to two years compared to the traditional design-bid-build approach."

Sierra Blanca won the contract despite being $15.6 million higher than a low-bid submission from the team of HBG Flatiron Inc., Longmont, Colo., and Ames Construction Inc., Burnsville, Minn. The lengthy review process weighed proposals based on qualifications and construction approaches, with an emphasis on environmental sensitivity and working with communities. Over 400 properties border the U.S. 70 project and there are no alternate routes through the valley. "We didn't choose the lowest bidder," Rahn says. "We actually ended up choosing the second-highest price. But in our assessment, we felt that Sierra Blanca's proposal had the least amount of risk to the state and was most responsive to the environmental impact statement."

Sierra Blanca also beat out proposals from Hondo Valley Constructors, a joint venture of Twin Mountain Construction II Co., a division of Peter Kiewit Sons' Inc., Omaha, Neb., and Parsons Transportation Group Inc., Pasadena, Calif.; Team 70, consisting of FNF Construction Inc., Tempe, Ariz., and DMJM+Harris, a unit of AECOM Technology Corp., Los Angeles; and US 70 Rio Hondo Constructors, a joint venture of Nielsons Skanska, a unit of Skanska Inc., Whitestone, N.Y., and A.S. Homer Inc., Albuquerque.

The winning Sierra Blanca proposal had a 30-year asphalt pavement design life as opposed to the 20-year lifespan of its competitors. Sierra Blanca also opted for a mechanistic-empirical design method that uses the same concepts found in the "2002 AASHTO Guide for the Design of New and Rehabilitated Pavement Structures." Essentially, it utilizes optimally engineered asphalt materials in specific layers to prevent pavement failure. "The M-E method relies on material load carrying capability rather than layer coefficients, which can sometimes be a poor correlation to the actual load," says David B. Smith, Sierra Blanca's project manager. "It was a significant element of our design-build proposal that clearly helped us land the project."

Speed Bumps

As it stands, the 28-month undertaking calls for widening the rural two-lane road to four lanes, with 22 dedicated left-turn lanes. The job requires approximately 800,000 tons of plant mix bituminous pavement with 650,000 tons of base course material. There also is a newly configured U.S. 380 intersection with separated east and westbound lanes, plus a landscaped median and scenic pullout. About 15 descansos will be saved and moved as part of the widening project.

The Hondo Valley's cultural attractions and 92 archeological and historical sites from Mogollan, Hispanic and European cultures also made highway design a challenge. The area is perhaps best known for the Lincoln County Wars in 1878-1881, which enhanced the reputation of outlaw William "Billy the Kid" Bonney. Under a NMDOT mandate, Sierra Blanca Constructors must obtain community design approval before any construction can begin, which means breaking up the work into six sections.

	Gabion basket walls shore hillsides in tight spots.

The project got off to a bumpy start with a legal challenge to the environmental impact statement (EIS) produced for NMDOT by Parsons Brinckerhoff Inc., New York City. Filed in federal district court in Albuquerque by the Valley Community Preservation Commission (VCPC), a local conservation group, the complaint alleges that construction activities will cause irreparable injury to natural and historic resources. NMDOT replied that $35 million was being allocated for minimizing construction impact and that onsite environmental quality inspectors were being used. VCPC also claims that FHwA's approval of the EIS violates the National Environmental Protection Act and Section 4(f) of the Dept. of Transportation Act by ignoring possible conflicts of interest and alternative routes. "The injunction, if granted, would have stopped the U.S. 70 expansion project until the FHwA adequately studies the project impacts on cultural and historical resources in the Hondo Valley," says Heather Anderson, an attorney representing VCPC. "Unfortunately, [the] judge denied our request for the preliminary injunction pending a trial on the merits of the case." VCPC and the individual plaintiffs in the case have appealed the denial of the injunction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and are awaiting a decision.

Construction on the project began a month late, as did the design work, which took five months longer than anticipated because of the need for each community to approve their portion of the project. The original completion date of Feb. 22, 2005, has been extended to June 2005 and the project carries $10,000-a-day liquidated damages for late completion.

According to NMDOT, the U.S. 70 widening has $2.2 million in change orders-2.2% of the original contract price. "We spent the first season of work getting through the design process," Smith says. "We still accomplished a lot, but not as much as we would have liked."

The asphalt highway is being widened from 35 ft to 75 ft, mostly within the existing 690-acre right-of-way. The state acquired less than 100 acres of land for $1.5 million for the project, mostly in small slivers along the 38-mile stretch, says Louie Pacheco, NMDOT's project development engineer.

The Hondo Valley demonstration project winds through sensitive cultural and historic locations.

Squeezing four lanes into two lanes of space meant carving out a hillside with 340,000 lb of explosives. Over 1.7 million cu yd of dirt and rock will be excavated and embanked on the project. There are 450,000 sq ft of retaining walls, including 70,000 sq ft of soldier pile lagging walls, 60,000 sq ft of gabion basket walls and 320,000 sq ft of soil slopes reinforced with a geotextile fabric. "Supporting the down-slope side of the roadway where there is not sufficient right-of-way to allow the embankment slopes to spill out was especially challenging to the design team," says Jim Jewell, Sierra Blanca's deputy project manager. "We developed a series of retaining structures that could be built from the highway side of the structure to support the roadway embankment."

	Precast and cast-in-place structures were critical.

The job entails replacing storm drainage, including 6,000 linear ft of cast-in-place box culvert up to 6 ft by 8 ft, and 45,000 ft of drainage pipe from 18 in. to 72 in. in diameter. Five bridges will be replaced and a sixth widened. Consisting of precast concrete girders and cast-in-place decks, abutments and pile foundations, the bridges include four three-span and two single-span structures. The largest bridge is 50 ft high with a 200-ft-long span.

Currently, the project design has been completed and construction is 56% finished with 44% of the contract time expended. Sierra Blanca is making steady progress and expects to easily meet its June 2005 deadline.

Even though the highway widening has not yet been completed, the project already appears to be producing the desired safety results. In July 2003, NMDOT designated the U.S. 70 project as a "safety corridor" and placed a stronger emphasis on reducing traffic accidents and deaths by increasing motorist awareness. "In 2002 there were 12 fatalities along the U.S. 70 Hondo Valley corridor," says Gary Shubert, NMDOT's District II engineer. "In the year since breaking ground, there has not been a fatality, which is an excellent improvement."

The author is a Las Vegas-based correspondent for The McGraw-Hill Cos. He regularly reports on design and construction industry issues.

All photos by Gill Kenny, courtesy of Sierra Blanca Constructors.

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