Industry turns its focus to California during 2014 NAT Conference

The former mayor of Los Angeles, CA is a believer in public transportation but thinks neither his city nor the entire country is spending enough on basic infrastructure. In fact, the United States has fallen behind most other developed nations in improving public transportation, the former mayor said.

Antonio R. Villaraigosa was the keynote speaker at the North American Tunneling (NAT) conference, held June 22-25 in Los Angeles, CA.The event, held every two years, is sponsored by the Underground Construction Association of SME (UCA). This years' conference attracted 1,091 underground construction professionals from around the world. The accompanying exhibition continues to grow, attracting 142 exhibiting companies occupying 162 booths.

As always at NAT, registered attendees received the proceedings volume of the conference, which contains 132 papers. The proceedings volume, including a CD of the papers, is available from SME for $149 member, $139 student member and $189 nonmember. The book can be ordered from SME, NAT item #400-4, phone 303-948-4225,1-800-763-3132, or online at www.smenet.org/store.

Keynote session

Villaraigosa was mayor of Los Angeles from 2005 through 2013. During that time, he was a strong proponent of building a first class bus system to connect with its rail system, the goal being to "lose the addiction to single passenger cars," he said.

To that end, Villaraigosa helped persuade Los Angeles County voters in 2008 to pass Measure R, a half-cent sales tax that would be used for transportation projects in the area. It was estimated that the tax would bring in about $40 billion during the next 30 years. The Los Angeles area has three transportation projects, funded through the halfcent sales tax, that are either under construction or about to begin, he said. They are the Crenshaw/LAX project, the Regional Connector Transit project and the Westside Purple Line Extension project.

Villaraigosa is very critical of the U.S. Congress' inability to pass a long-term infrastructure bill. In an interview with T&UC following his keynote address, he said that artisan politics has stalled any progress on surface transportation issues. "America has to catch up. Professionals are working overseas but not in the United States," he said. "The world is moving while we're standing still." China is building high-speed rail, for example, and 16 other countries are either building them or considering doing so, he said. "It is critical that America start building again," he said. "We need to invest to improve our infrastructure."

Because of the Congress' inability to pass a long-term infrastructure-funding bill, Villaraigosa said it's up to cities and states to figure out ways fund projects - he favors public-private partnerships. "Cities have to take the lead in a world where the Congress does nothing," he said.

To get projects built, coalitions have to be formed between cities, states and other interested parties to decide which projects get built, Villaraigosa said. "This is not a perfect world where you get to pick the project you want."

Technical presentations

A major reason NAT is always successful and respected industry event, attracting the number of professionals that it does, is a strong technical program. The following is a small sampling of abstracts.

Planning for what could go wrong, when in fact it could go right - The importance of risk management on tunneling and underground construction projects, J. O'Carroll, Parsons Brinckerhoff - Regardless of whether a tunneling program or project is in the planning, design or execution phase, tackling risks early on is more timeand cost-effective than responding to problems. From inception, projects carry more risk than anticipated, resulting in missing target dates and cost increases. As projects unfold, new risks arise, and they become problems if not identitied and acted on immediately. This paper outlines key risk management strategies for owners, tunnel designers and constructors that eliminate, or lessen the severity of, as much risk as possible from the earliest project planning and design stages.

Tunnel boring machine selection for the Baltimore Red Line downtown tunnel, H. Cordes, R. Flanagan and M. Ciancia, Parsons Brinckerhoff-The Baltimore Red Line project involves the design and construction of a 4.8km(3-mile-) long tunnel through downtown Baltimore, MD, enabling light rail service between residential and business areas. This paper focuses on the considerations for the selection of an appropriate tunnel boring machine methodology for the downtown tunnel contract procurement. Design challenges of tunneling beneath downtown Baltimore include a tight right-of-way, close proximity to historic and modern high-rise buildings and pre-existing underground tunnels and utilities. Challenging ground conditions consist of soil and rock in full-face and mixedface conditions. A comprehensive assessment and comparison of state-of-the-art tunnel face support, including innovative hybrid machine techniques with earth pressure balance, slurry face control and open-mode capabilities, was performed to determine the most suitable approach for the project.

The next level: Why deeper Is better for TBMs in mining, R. Gratias, C. Allen and D. Willis, The Robbins Company - Diminishing surficial mineral deposits, increasing environmental regulation and advanced geological exploration techniques are ushering in a new era of mining. Unconventional technology must be adopted to ensure that safe, efficient and responsible access to minerals is possible, as prospecting continues to push the mining industry deeper. This paper discusses why competitive mining operations will become increasingly dependent on tunnel boring machines (TBMs) for mine development and expansion, and explores the implications of TBMs in a drill-and-blast dominated industry.

Design/build a panacea-not, T. Smirnoff, Parsons Brinckerhoff - The current trend of large and small public properties to build major infrastructure is to do so through design/build. Owners believe the design/build approach will shorten the time from preliminary engineering and environmental clearance to delivery while saving money. For design/ builders and their engineers, this seems to be a false economy and saves neither money nor time and, in many cases, leaves the owners lacking. This paper examines some of the myths in design/build and shifts of risks to the design/builder as they go through the protracted and expensive process of developing design to meet project requirements and assume contractual risks that are often either attainable or economical. For the responsible final design engineer, it forces many compromises in design to attain the sometimes unattainable low bid.

Other NAT events

The UCA of SME handed out four awards at its banquet on the final night of the conference (T&UC, June 2014, page 28). Herbert H. Einstein was presented the Outstanding Educator Award. Ronald E. Heuer was given the Lifetime Achievement Award. Lok Home earned the Outstanding Individual Award. The Project of the Year Award was presented to the Tom Laníos Tunnel project, commonly known as Devils Slide.

Four short courses were presented on Sunday preceding the meeting. They included Tunnel construction ventilation planning and design, surveying in the tunneling industry, Hyperbaric operation in earth pressures balance tunneling: Current standards and operational requirements, and Grouting in underground construction.

Upcoming conferences

There are three conferences in which UCA is heavily involved with coming up. For meeting updates and registration information, go to www.smenet.org. Cutting Edge: Ground Water Control is set for Nov. 2-5,2014 in New York City. The annual George A. Fox Conference will take place Jan. 27,2015, also in New York City. And the 2015 Rapid Excavation and Tunneling Conference will be held in New Orleans, LA June 7-10,2015.

The next NAT will be held in conjunction with World Tunnel Congress April 22-27,2016 in San Francisco, CA. The UCA will be hosting both conferences. *