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Central Artery Tunnel Project 
The Central Artery/Tunnel (CA/T) Project in Boston is the largest, most complex and technologically challenging highway project to be constructed in the core of a major American city. The $10.8 billion project will replace the existing elevated Central Artery (I-93) structure built through downtown Boston in the 1950s with a modern underground expressway designed to carry over 200,000 vehicles per day. The project will also extend the Massachusetts Turnpike (I-90) to Logan International Airport through the new $1.3 billion Ted Williams Tunnel under Boston Harbor. The greatest challenge in Boston is to construct the project while maintaining traffic flow along the Central Artery and through the narrow streets of historic downtown Boston. The Louis Berger Group (Berger), in a joint venture with HW Lochner and Stone & Webster, was selected to provide design services for the South Bay Interchange where the highly congested I-93 and I-90 meet to form a critical link in the CA/T project. The Berger has provided overall project management, highway and structural design services and utility relocation plans. One of the most innovative features of the project has been the development of a construction staging and traffic management plan to meet the CA/T team's pledge to "keep Boston moving" during construction. The Berger traffic plan included the design and construction of 15,000 feet of temporary roadway, 6,000 feet of temporary bridges and 5,000 feet of retaining wall. Physical relocation of the southbound lanes of I-93 presented an especially daunting traffic management and engineering problem. The solution was an interim viaduct structure that would remain in operation for five years, providing a long-term detour for motorists and a safe construction environment. Furthermore, the complex structure has to be built with minimal disruption to adjacent businesses, very few utility relocations and no adverse impact on historical structures. The Louis Berger Group is also providing comprehensive construction services for the two major and four other contracts for the multi-level $400 million interchange. In addition to providing regular construction services like review of shop drawings, responses to Requests for Information and review of contractor's value engineering proposals, the CA/T construction effort requires frequent design modifications resulting from needed coordination with numerous adjacent and project-wide contracts, as well as underground obstructions from undocumented piers, wharves and eighteenth and nineteenth century buildings in Boston's historic business district. |
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