Northeast #3, 2010 - CEG

Published Nationally

Northeast Edition

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® February 3 2010 Vol. XLVIII • No. 3

“The Nation’s Best Read Construction Newspaper… Founded 1957.” 470 Maryland Drive • Ft. Washington, PA 19034 • 215/885-2900 • Toll Free 800-523-2200 • Fax 215/885-2910 • www.ConstructionEquipmentGuide.com

Inside

Route 52 Causeway Rises Nearly 100 New York Above the Tide in Jersey Spans in Dire Need of Rehabilitation By Ben Dobbin

Contractor Makes the Big Cut in W.Va. …8

AED Holds Annual Convention, CONDEX…14

ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) Dozens of New York’s bridges have equally poor or even worse “condition ratings” than the Lake Champlain Bridge earned just months before the 80year-old span was shut down and demolished, the state comptroller said Jan. 12. Three major bridges — the Tappan Zee in New York City’s northern suburbs, the Peace Bridge linking Buffalo with Canada, and the Ogdensburg-Prescott International Bridge in northern New York — are in urgent need of improvements, Thomas DiNapoli said in a report on highway bridge management and oversight. “The closing of the Champlain Bridge should serve as a wake-up call for us all,” DiNapoli said. “We have to start paying much more attention to our infrastructure needs, and the Department of Transportation has to do a better job of making sure defects are quickly and thoroughly addressed. This is about public safety and it’s about Route 52 northbound structure shown under construction looking east toward economic survival.” The bridge linking New York and Vermont was closed in Ocean City, N.J. The existing Route 52 low level bridge is seen right, still occupied with traffic.

Firm’s Big History Begins With Small Choice…44

Table of Contents ............4 Truck & Trailer Section .... ..................................55-59 Crushing, Screening & Recycling Section ....63-83 Parts Section ..............104 Business Calendar ......111 Auction Section ..111-120 Advertisers Index........118

By Mary Reed CEG CORRESPONDENT

Whether travelers in New Jersey cross the Route 52 Causeway from Somers Point to Ocean City to enjoy a family-friendly vacation or to drive the other way to the mainland to flee a hurricane, three years from now their journeys will be swifter, safer — and at a higher elevation. The ongoing two-phase $400 million causeway contract is one of the largest awarded by the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) and is billed as the biggest highway job in the history of the southern part of the state. The project, officially titled the Route 52 Causeway Replacement and Circle Elimination Project and split into two contracts, is considered critical because Route 52 serves as an emergency evacuation route for Ocean City. Of particular concern were the causeway’s bridges, see CAUSEWAY page 18

see BRIDGES page 116

Work Finally Begins on MLK Memorial in Washington, D.C. By Brett Zongker ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

WASHINGTON (AP) Construction is finally under way on the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall after more than a dozen years of planning, fundraising and legal wrangling. Workers have been clearing the site on the Tidal Basin since Dec. 28. They will move some trees to another part of the mall, including a few of Washington’s famous cherry trees. By February, heavy construc-

tion will begin. Jan. 18 marked the first King holiday, though, when organizers could finally see their work in progress. “Everyone in the office is taking a deep breath,” executive architect Ed Jackson Jr. said in an interview Jan. 15. “Although it’s been a labor of love, it’s been a long road, 13 years for me.” It was supposed to be completed by now. President Bill Clinton signed a law authorizing the memorial in 1996, and President see MEMORIAL page 114