The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority (Illinois Tollway) has awarded six construction and engineering contracts totaling $228.7 million, including one for $184.6 million for bridge reconstruction on the Tri-State Tollway per Construction Dive.
F.H. Paschen, S.N. Nielsen & Associates were selected to rebuild the TriState's northbound Mile Long Bridge under the largest construction contract ever issued by the Tollway.
Other awards included the following:
- $29.5 million contract to Jacobs Engineering for design corridor manager services for the I-490 Tollway project
- $8.2 million to Paschen Nielsen for pavement and structural preservation and rehabilitation to the I-88 Reagan Memorial Tollway
- $5 million to Chicago based Infrastructure Engineering for system-wide, on-request construction management services
All together this year, the Illinois Tollway has awarded almost $376 million of construction and engineering contracts to advance its $14 billion, 15-year Move Illinois capital program. The authority has invested $6.7 billion in the initiative since it began in 2012. This has created or sustained about 68,000 jobs.
This program is funded by bond and toll revenue and also includes expanding access to O'Hare International Airport by improving the existing system and constructing new, all electric toll roads. They also plan to increase the level of regional mobility and this will create about 120,000 jobs over the program's duration.
Even though the Tollway is able to deliver on its program, the Illinois DOT is underfunded by tens of billions of dollars.
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In February, former Acting Secretary Matt Magalis told state lawmakers that the agency is in need of a minimum of $39 billion to meets its infrastructure needs for the next 10 years. Highway maintenance would also require anywhere from $13 billion to $15 billion. $19 billion would also be needed for public transit and $4 billion for freight rail. Billions more are needed to increase highway capacity. All of this is being taken into consideration by the state Senate as they put together a long-term spending bill.
To bolster funding for state DOT's, increases in gas taxes or other user fees and allocations through the Federal Highway Administration's Highway Trust Fund are being considered. But government officials have predicted that the financing mechanism is headed for insolvency unless it finds another revenue stream or increases existing ones. Currently, taxes on gas and diesel fuel fund the trust account, but federal fuel taxes haven't been increased since 1993 and lawmakers are hesitant about raising them.
According to Roads & Bridges, the Mile Long Bridge construction contract approved by the Tollway Board is the first of two construction contracts for work to remove and rebuild the twin bridge structures carrying northbound and southbound traffic as part of the $4 billion Central Tri-State Tollway (I-294) Project. Construction scheduled for 2019 to 2023 will maintain access for customers with four lanes in each direction throughout the project.
The Mile Long Bridge was originally constructed in 1958 and is a critical piece of infrastructure to I-294 as it carries drivers over two major railroads, three water resources and local roads, and over a major distribution center for UPS and Burlington-Northern Santa Fe Railway. Up to 150,000 vehicles travel on the Mile Long Bridge daily.
The contracts approved include one prime consultant, 12 sub-consultants, one prime contractor and 28 subcontractors that are certified as disadvantaged, minority and women owned business enterprise firms. Also includes two sub-consultants as well as four subcontractors that are certified veteran-owned firms.
