North America’s well-worn reputation as the land of opportunity has never been truer—for the tunnelling industry at least. With work from coast to coast in both Canada and the United States, the biggest problem facing this market is a lack of skilled workers at all levels. Despite the shortage, and to not mention rough economic circumstances, major projects for transport, metros, water and power are moving forward and opportunities are abundant.
One of the most interesting projects in North America at the moment is the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle. Local authorities have recommended replacing the viaduct’s central section with a bored tunnel. The project will require building one of the largest soft ground TBMs in the world to create the 2.77km long Washington State SR99 bored tunnel. It will accommodate two lanes each 3.66m wide, among other features of the 15.8m total diameter. The Washington State Department of Transportation released a request in May to pre-qualified teams for the SR 99 bored tunnel alternative designbuild project. The cost for the tunnel is estimated at USD 1.96bn, with major construction expected to start next year and the tunnel to open to traffic in 2015.
In June, another traffic project marked a significant moment in its progress. The Miami Access Tunnel (MAT) held a groundbreaking for the USD 1bn tunnel connecting Watson Island to the Port of Miami. Headway on this project follows various stalls since its inception in 2006 due to financing, but officials are hoping for a 2014 opening. The consortium, led by Bouygues, will be using a USD 45M Herrenknecht TBM to create twin tubes, each containing two traffic lanes. The tubes are each approximately 1.1km long, 12.5m in diameter and will be up to 120 feet below the water. Herrenknecht will build the TBM in Germany and ship parts to Miami to be assembled. Construction is expected as early as summer 2011.
Dennis Doherty, senior trenchless technology engineer at Haley & Aldrich, says across the US there is a lot of CSO, water and waste water projects happening across the country, which in turn means there are a lot of those types of tunnels going on too.
A more notable project, the Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG) 10.2km long Niagara Tunnel will route water from the Niagara River and carry it downstream to the Sir Adam Beck Generating Stations. OPG says with this tunnel it can provide enough clean water power to generate a further 1.6 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, enough to meet the electricity needs of about 160,000 homes. Contractor Strabag A G of Austria is using one of the largest hard rock TBMs, in the world to drill the 14.4m wide tunnel.
Despite a stall between September and early December 2009 due to a 25m section of the ceiling partially caving in, the TBM has now passed the 7km mark after being taken out of service in May for a planned overhaul and will resume boring in late June. This summer has also seen a start to concrete work on the final stage of the 600mm permanent tunnel lining, which will continue until autumn 2012.
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By GlobalDataWater and wastewater is a strong market, Doherty says, primarily because of EPA rulings. “There are highway tunnels, transit tunnels, and so forth, but I think with the EPA pushing consent decrees out there and a lot of the combined sewer overflows—often they’re just installing deep block tunnels or deep tunnels for storage—just to meet that demand alone is eating into the resources.”
Executive chair of the World Tunnelling Congress Rick Lovat agrees there is plenty of demand to go around. “The major challenge we have here is developing the resources going forward for the work that is coming,” he says.
In the near term, there’s going to be a lot of work in Toronto particularly, he explains, saying in the coming months Toronto will be a “hot spot” for subway work, metro work and for some water transfer work and sewage work. The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) has created the Transit City initiative to develop Light Rail Transit (LRT) lines in neighbourhoods not currently served by rapid public transport. Currently, it is working on four projects including the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, which would run underground for a 12km section. The majority of the underground segments will consist of twin tunnels, each 6m in diameter using TBMs. Stations, portals and areas for track work will be constructed by cut-and-cover. Separate from the Transit City programme, TTC expects construction to start this year on 8.6km twin tunnels for the Toronto-York Spadina subway extension, using both a TBM and cut-andcover. This spring, contracts were awarded to Varcon Construction for the TBM launch shafts at Sheppard West Station and to HC Matcon Inc. at Steeles West Station. Toronto-based Lovat Inc. has been awarded a CAN 58M (USD 56M) contract to build the four TBMs that will be used to build about 6.6km of the tunnel. The TTC expects the project to tender the six major facility contracts between now and January, with two by summer’s end— the Sheppard West Station and South Tunnels contract by end of July and Highway 407 Station and North Tunnels contract by end of August. Elsewhere in Canada, Ottawa is looking at tunnelling for upcoming transit work, and Vancouver’s new Evergreen Line will include a 2km bored tunnel with depths between 17m and 60m. The Evergreen project submitted its Application for Environmental Assessment Certificate Application in May, and is currently in the public comment period until August 29.
The tunnelling industry in Canada, looking at both the medium and long term, is quite healthy, Lovat says. “Today there is plenty of work, and the farther you look out there’s plenty of work.” Though challenges due exist, he says, “Canada is still regional in a sense that contractors don’t tend to move across the country very well.” Lovat thinks this is a result of being underresourced— contractors take care of their own backyard and then when something else comes up the next province over they become too strained to move. “Which then opens the doors for two things to happen, people from south of the border come up or from abroad, from Europe,” he explains. “And from a Canadian perspective we haven’t seen much cross border activity. We see it from the consultants. There’s no doubt the consultants are travelling northsouth, but we don’t see many American contractors coming up into Canada to fill those voids that exist. Which is somewhat surprising, but that then tells you that they themselves are quite occupied back at their home base, which is very much the case.”
New York City is seeing multiple commuter rail projects, including New Jersey Transit’s Access to the Region’s Core, also known as the Mass Transit Tunnel. This project will connect New Jersey to Manhattan via single-track tunnels under the Hudson River. The contract for the 2.26km Hudson Tunnels has not yet been awarded, though five contractors have been pre-qualified to proceed to Phase II for the final design and construction. Two other contracts for tunnels on the New Jersey and Manhattan lengths have been awarded. A USD 583M contract went to Barnard-Judlau jv for the 1.6km long Manhattan Tunnels, which will connect to a new underground expansion of New York’s Penn Station. The two 1.6km TBM bored Palisades Tunnels will run through the Palisades hard rock on the New Jersey side of the river. Meanwhile, New York’s Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA) is excavating rail tunnels for the East Side Access project. Crossing under the East River, the tunnels will connect the Long Island Rail Road’s Main and Port Washington lines in Queens to a new terminal beneath Grand Central Station in Manhattan.
“The choke point right now is to be able to get the work done,” says Doherty.
The Port of Miami will start tunnelling as early as summer 2011 ‘Big Becky’ has passed the 7km mark of the Niagra Tunnel
