[StBernard] (no subject)

[Westley Annis]

Corps of Engineers forecasts major traffic as levee construction gets under
way
Posted by pdevlin July 31, 2009 17:46PM

The trucks that will haul materials for billions of dollars worth of
hurricane protection system construction will drive 50 million miles on
highways and streets in the New Orleans area during the next two or three
years, Army Corps of Engineers representatives said.

The numbers stagger: By January of 2010, 18-wheelers could be delivering as
many as 145 loads of steel to building sites daily; by the following April,
dump trucks could be making an estimated 5,100 trips each day daily to
unload millions of cubic yards of dirt; and by next November, cement mixers
could make as many as 210 deliveries a day to several construction sites.

It is a nightmarish transportation matrix that corps officials said also
will usher in an increased risk of traffic accidents, disruption of normal
transportation patterns, wear and tear on roadways, and perhaps a decline in
air quality, thanks mostly to the trucks burning through 10 million gallons
of diesel fuel.

"The good news is that every truck we see on the road is a sign of progress,
a reduction in risk, " said Col. Al Lee, commander of the corps' New Orleans
District, where an estimated $10 billion worth of construction is scheduled
to provide a "100-year" level of protection from hurricane-driven flooding.

"But you will see an unparalleled amount of truck traffic . . . and a
priority of ours is how to mitigate the impacts on daily traffic (and) to
prepare for how we operate during the hurricane season, " he said.

Lee said the corps began to look two years ago at the effects such
unprecedented levels of construction could have on traffic in Orleans,
Jefferson, St. Charles, St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes.

But not until a series of transportation workshops that began Thursday did
the corps began officially talking traffic with public works directors,
levee district representatives, traffic engineers, regional planners and
others.


"One key thing we took away from the meetings is . . . they want us to keep
the public informed, " Lee said. "We'll work with all (other agencies) to do
that and we'll probably have a traffic working group. We've already brought
a traffic engineer on board."

Space shuttle miles

The magnitude of what is about to play out in the New Orleans area as the
corps ramps up to finish the rebuilding mission authorized after tragic
levee system failures during Hurricane Katrina draws only outsized
comparisons.

For example, delivery of the 1.5 million tons of rock and sand needed to
manufacture the 972,000 yards of concrete required for construction, which
will come mostly from St. Tammany and Washing parishes, will require trucks
to make as many as 65,000 round trips across the Causeway -- more than three
times today's average daily traffic.

Another way of looking at it: The space shuttle Endeavour just racked up 6.5
million miles during 16 days in orbit, corps environmental chief Gibb Owen
said.

"And we're looking at doing 6 million miles just between St. Tammany and
here, " Owen said Friday in New Orleans.

"Even if you don't have a levee behind your house, transportation is the one
aspect that touches everybody, " he said. "Putting 50 million miles on local
roads impacts everyone who uses them."


Most of the 50 million miles will be driven by the dump trucks that are
expected to make 2 million trips delivering about 30 million cubic yards of
borrow, or levee-building clay.

That's enough to fill six Superdomes. And when the corps begins levee work
in Plaquemines Parish sometime next year, another 30 million cubic yards
will be required; most of that should come from within the parish.

Not so for levees along Lake Pontchartrain.

All the work from the Industrial Canal west through East Jefferson and St.
Charles parishes will use borrow from pits at the Bonne Carre Spillway.

That means trucks will mostly use Airline Highway and Interstate 10 before
exiting to wend their way along surface streets north of the interstate to
reach project sites.


Streets to be specified

Each contract will include a transportation plan that specifies which local
streets can be used to reach specific projects.

Corps representatives said those streets will be worked out in conjunction
with state transportation officials and the appropriate local governments.

If local officials decide to set a lower speed limit for trucks along a
neighborhood street, contractors must comply, corps representatives said.

About 90 percent of the perimeter levee on the New Orleans lakefront is
complete, and borrow for work on the eastern flank and along the Inner
Harbor Navigation Canal will come from that general area or the north shore.

The work in St. Bernard Parish would have required an additional 30 million
cubic yards, had the corps not decided to build floodwalls instead of
raising levees.

"We don't anticipate a lot of traffic congestion in St. Bernard or eastern
New Orleans, " said Col. Robert Sinkler, commander of the corps' Hurricane
Protection Office.

Projects on the West Bank of Jefferson Parish will get borrow from areas in
that region and to the west, which means those communities, along with St.
Charles Parish and East Jefferson, can expect to absorb most of the impact,
corps maps show.

Trucks hauling about 822,000 tons of steel are expected to travel 1 million
miles on local roads making about 40,000 round trips to drop critical cargo.
Cement mixers will travel an estimated 1 million miles making 100,000 trips
to work sites.

Almost 60 miles of hurricane protection levees alone will be under
construction during this year's six-month storm season that opened June 1, a
number that will increase during the 2011 season, according to the corps.

Tweeting traffic

Corps representatives anticipate using Twitter, Facebook, Web sites and the
media to try and give the public daily traffic advisories.

"Our goal is to make the public aware of what's going on, but we have to
have a holistic approach, or this won't work, " said Rick Kendrick, programs
executive chief for the Hurricane Protection Office.

"The state has $300 or $400 million of work themselves, and the locals have
work, too, " he said. "We'll coordinate with everybody."

Corps construction chief Bruce Terrell said his priorities will be working
with local governments to mitigate the effects of heavy truck traffic in
neighborhoods, as well as securing construction sites in advance of
approaching tropical storms or hurricanes.

"If we're five days out from potential landfall and the contractor's
(emergency) plan takes two days to implement, we'll do that sooner rather
than later, " Terrell said.

Corps officials said Congress did not appropriate money to repair roads
after the projects are completed. But Owen and others said they would help
state and local governments document truck traffic in support of federal
money to do that work.

A traffic workshop report, complete with projected traffic, should be
available on the corps' Web site, /www.mvn.usace.army.mil/.

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