The New York State Society of Professional Engineers (NYSSPE) is proud to announce that the 5-Mile Belt Parkway Bridge Replacement & Reconstruction Project has been selected as the 2019 Construction Project of the Year. The Award recipients include the New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) as project owner; AECOM, Hardesty and Hanover, and HNTB as the project design firms; and Greenman-Pedersen, Inc. (GPI) and Thornton Tomasetti (Weidlinger) as Construction Managers and Resident Engineers. Among others, the project’s general contractors CCA Civil, Inc., Halmar International, and Michels of the Mill Basin Bridge Constructors (MBBC) will be recognized. The award will be given out at the NYSSPE Annual Installation & Awards Reception & Dinner which will be held on Thursday, June 7th, 2019 at the Holiday Inn Conference Center, 232 Broadway, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866. The event is open to the public. For more information about the Awards Reception and Dinner event, click here.
The 5 Mile Belt Parkway Reconstruction Project is about the reconstruction of a vital artery of a historic parkway, which spans over a 5-mile strip of environmentally sensitive coastland of New York City. Located in a dense urban setting, the reconstruction project remained open for approximately 150,000 commuters per day, necessitating innovative design and work methods. The project required diligent coordination of the work between the City and some of our nation’s most prominent engineering firms. The scope of the $780 million infrastructure project included: the reconstruction of five (5) unique bridges in critical need of repair originally built circa 1940; and the complete replacement of the connecting roadways, bike path, and ramps. The complete surface landscaping and final tree planting of the project was being completed in late 2018.
The project’s owner, NYC DOT, employs dozens of professional engineers who provide design and supervision of critical infrastructure construction and maintenance work throughout the City. The distinguished design professionals in charge at NYC DOT that contributed to the design and supervision of the project of the year included Mr. Robert Collyer, P.E., Deputy Commissioner and Chief Bridge Officer, David B. Dunn, P.E., Deputy Chief Engineer, Bridge Capital Design and Construction, Anil Vyas, P.E., Deputy Chief Engineer, Mousa Nazif, P.E., Director, Roadway Bridges – Manhattan / Brooklyn Groups, and Daniel Hom, P.E., Engineer in Charge.
NYC DOT Division of Bridges is responsible for the design, construction, rehabilitation, reconstruction, maintenance, operation, and administration of the 784 bridges, 5 tunnels, and 53 culverts located citywide, that are under the jurisdiction of the agency. Included in this inventory are the majority of the original 1940’s bridges of the Belt Parkway. The Belt Parkway is the namesake for a series of connected highways that form a belt-like circle around the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. The parkway was originally conceptualized in the 1930’s by the City’s Planning and Parks Commissioner, Robert Moses.
The replacement of the five (5) bridges in the project were packaged together in a single corridor-wide replacement program that brought the corridor into full compliance with current state and federal standards. This included compliance with standard width of traffic lanes, requirements for safety shoulders and super-elevation of curbing roads and bridges, realignment of approaches to improve sight distances, and new concrete median barriers.
Paerdegat Basin Bridge.
The five (5) bridges in the reconstruction project span over four waterways and one roadway. The design and replacement of the old Belt Parkway bridge over Paerdegat Basin was performed by NYC DOT – In House Design team, which opted for independent eastbound and westbound replacement bridge structures as shown in the captioned photo. The Eastbound bridge also carries a dedicated, 12 foot wide, barrier protected, bicycle and pedestrian path. The joint venture by the design firms of GPI and AECOM (“CTE”) was selected to provide resident engineering and construction inspection services. An innovative design feature of the Paerdegat Basin Bridges was the design of the two (2) bridge structures on a split alignment, which allowed the existing bridge to remain in service, while the new bridges were constructed “off-line”.
The other four bridges in the reconstruction project were designed by outside design professional firms: The Mill Basin Bridge was designed by HNTB; the Gerritsen Inlet Bridge and Fresh Creek Basin Bridge were designed by AECOM (formerly URS and Earth Tech); and the Belt Parkway bridge over Rockaway Parkway was designed by Hardesty & Hanover.
GPI, AECOM, HNTB, Hardest & Hanover and Thornton Tomasetti employ dozens of design professionals who provide design and supervision of critical infrastructure construction and maintenance work throughout the nation. The distinguished design professionals at GPI that contributed as construction managers and resident engineers of the project included Mr. William Ferdinandsen, P.E., ENV SP, Program Manager; Mr. Rudolph Fogarty, P.E., Resident Engineer (Gerritsen Inlet); Mr. Marc Matalon, P.E., Resident Engineer (Rockaway Parkway), Denise Carter P.E., Gregory Zenk P.E., Frank Gallo P.E., Jay Shah P.E., Jerry Amoah P.E. and Jerry Chan P.E.
The distinguished design professionals at AECOM that contributed to the design and supervision of the project include Rahul Saggar, P.E., Project Manager; James Van Sickels, P.E., Project Manager; Shah Habibullah, P.E., Project Manager; and Paul Dombrowski, P.E., Chief Resident Engineer. Bhanu Finavia, P.E., Pau Aviza, P.E., Paul Mortenson, P.E., Henry Sen, P.E. Ryan Neilian, P.E. was the Environmental Engineer for construction program.
The distinguished design professionals at HNTB that contributed to the design of the project included Garry Tow, P.E., Project Manager. The distinguished design professionals at Hardesty & Hanover that contributed to the design of the project included Ramon A. Recio, PE, as Project Manager and Silvio Garcia, PE as Project Engineer.
George Pappas, P.E., Principle and Project Manager and James Dineen, P.E., Resident Engineer, were of the distinguished design professionals of Thornton Tomasetti who contributed as project manager and resident engineer for the project.
The distinguished design professional at Hardesty & Hanover that contributed in the project was Charles Gozdziewski, PE, as Project Principal.
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