tures, including two overhead railroad crossings.
■ New and upgraded drainage facilities.
■ Pavement construction and revised delineation.
■ Tolling infrastructure. ■ Coordination with utility owners
for relocation of known utilities. Te general-purpose lane portion
of the I-405 Improvement Project is an “OC Go” project (formally Measure M, or Orange County’s half-cent trans- portation sales tax), and is funded by a combination of local, state and federal funds. Te express lanes portion of the project is financed and primarily paid for drivers who choose to pay a toll and use the 405 Express Lanes. OCTA secured a $629 million
federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) loan for the I-405 Improvement Project, which will pay for a major portion of the $1.9 billion worth of freeway improvements set to begin construction by early next year. Orange County taxpayers will save $300 million in interest costs thanks to the U.S. Department of Transportation TIFIA loan program.
Design-Build Delivery Te Orange County Transportation
Authority (OCTA), in cooperation with Caltrans, opted to employ design-build delivery on the project. In November of 2016 they selected OC 405 Partners to design and construct
the I-405 Improvement Project. Design-build has
been advantageous by expediting both the design and construction phases of the job, enabling construction to begin as sections of the design are released, according to OC 405 Partners contracts manager Azzam Saad. “It’s been an effective method as construction has begun, and we hope to complete the design by the end of 2019,” he commented. OC 405 Partners reported
Photo courtesy Orange County Transportation Authority
that as of spring 2019 there were around 90 subcontracts let on the project with another 300 or more expected to be executed before project completion. Despite the workforce shortage impacting some projects around California, “workforce avail- ability has not been an issue on this project to date,” according to Deputy Construction Manager Lawrence Damore. “Te craft workforce is currently at
160 union employees and we anticipate that number to grow up to 400 at peak of production on the project,” Damore added. Tose numbers do not include hundreds of subcontractor workforces involved on the job. Like other major construction projects, the I-405 Improvement
Project promises an economic boost to the surrounding communities. OCTA has estimated that more than 40,000 total jobs will be created during the entire life of the project.
Coordination With Multiple Stakeholders
Coordination with the vast array
of project partners and stakeholders has been key to the project’s success to date. In addition to OCTA and Caltrans, the team must coordinate with the Federal Highway Adminis- tration, nine cities and communities stretching from Costa Mesa to Long Beach, 40 separate utility owners, the Orange County Flood Control, Union Pacific Railroad, Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Navy and an array of emergency service providers. Formalized project partnering,
led by a third-party facilitator, has assisted with the coordination efforts and enhanced the level of collaboration on the project according to Saad. Te entire construction, design and OCTA project staff works out of the same project headquarters in Santa Ana, and all parties “promote a culture of teamwork and partnering, which are essential to finishing the job,” he noted. Given the project’s massive
scope, there are plenty of additional Photo courtesy Orange County Transportation Authority 14 July/August 2019
challenges, including: ■ The large number of bridge replacements. “Tis is one of the project’s critical challenges,” said Saad. “We have and will continue to spend significant time working with the cities along
California Constructor
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