Anchored pile wall and drilled shaft foundation construction allows for highway widening project to continue.

DBM Completes Shafts for Alaska's Glenn Highway

Caribou Creek, Alaska - DBM Contractors of Seattle recently completed construction of a 39,000-sq.-ft. permanent anchored pile wall, along with the drilled shaft foundations for a new replacement bridge over Caribou Creek on Alaska's Glenn Highway. This $5.6 million portion of the $35 million construction project will enable the replacement of a 1950s-era bridge and the widening of nine miles of highway.

The bridge foundation work consisted of drilling three, 10-ft.-dia. shafts with permanent, full-depth steel casing, and socketing the shafts into bedrock to depths of 80 to 115 ft. DBM also designed and built a permanent anchored pile wall to retain the fill required to widen the existing roadway.

The entire construction project is scheduled for completion in the summer of

2005. Other contractors involved in construction include Quality Asphalt

Paving, the general contractor for the project; and Sandstrom & Sons, Inc., which will build the bridge structure and permanent concrete facing for the retaining wall. Both companies are based in Anchorage, Alaska.

Tacoma Link Ridership Exceeds Projections

Tacoma, Wash. - An average of 2,500 passengers per day are riding the new 1.6-mile Tacoma Link light rail, exceeding initial ridership projections. The Tacoma Link was not expected to reach 2,000 weekday riders until 2010.

Tacoma Link, the first modern streetcar service in Washington State and the first streetcar to run in Tacoma since 1938, runs seven days a week between the multimodal Tacoma Dome Station at Freighthouse Square and the city's historic Theater District. The electric-powered light rail vehicles travel on steel tracks built into the center of the street.

The Tacoma Link project was developed by the Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority (Sound Transit). Puget Sound Transit Consultants, a joint venture of Parsons Brinckerhoff, Earth Tech Inc. and URS Inc. provided conceptual and preliminary engineering, project management services and final design for trackwork.

Puget Sound Transit Consultants is also supporting Sound Transit's Central Link project. The 14-mile initial segment of Central Link will extend from downtown Seattle to just north of Sea-Tac International Airport, connecting the cities of Seattle, Tukwila and Sea-Tac. The initial segment of Central Link is about to enter construction and is scheduled to open in 2009.