00985978

Component

https://doi.org/10.3141/1900-13

http://scholar.google.com...land&publication_year=2004

In December 2001, the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) opened a single bid for the substructure and superstructure contract to replace the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge, the crossing of the Potomac River for I-95 and I-495 (Capital Beltway) traffic. This contract was part of the larger Woodrow Wilson Bridge project, a $2.5 billion project to build the new Potomac River crossing and to reconstruct the four interchanges in its vicinity. The contract's estimate was a record for SHA at $487 million. The single bid was for a budget-wrecking $860 million and was rejected. The design team regrouped and focused its efforts on innovative means for bringing the project back on budget. Maryland SHA convened an independent review committee (IRC). Composed of industry experts, the IRC advised the design team on making the contract less expensive and more attractive to contractors to increase competition and reduce costs. Ultimately, the work was readvertised as three separate contracts. The outcome of redesigning and readvertising was to reduce the total bid amount for the work by $362 million. Several lessons were learned in handling megaprojects: reach out to the construction industry early and often to rouse and maintain interest in the project; make terms of the contracts as contractor friendly as reasonable; and, when sizing the contract, ensure that it is manageable and that it balances competition and contract interface risk.

This paper appears in Transportation Research Record No. 1900, Construction 2004.

00985965

English

p. 114-121

2004

Transportation Research Record

0309094941

Figures (3) ; Tables (1)

Bridges; Competition; Competitive bidding; Construction; Construction industry; Construction projects; Contractors; Contracts; Megaprojects

Maryland State Highway Administration; Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge

Independent review committee

Administration and Management; Bridges and other structures; Construction; Highways; I50: Construction and Supervision of Construction

TRIS, TRB

Feb 17 2005 12:00AM

• ACTIVE CRACK CONTROL FOR CONTINUOUSLY REINFORCED CONCRETE PAVEMENTS
• AGENCY PROCESS FOR ALTERNATE DESIGN AND ALTERNATE BID OF PAVEMENTS
• ANALYSIS OF MULTIVARIATE MODELS FOR EVALUATING SEGREGATION IN HOT-MIX ASPHALT PAVEMENTS
• ASSESSMENT OF PROFILER PERFORMANCE FOR CONSTRUCTION QUALITY CONTROL WITH SIMULATED PROFILOGRAPH INDEX
• AUTOMATED TEMPERATURE PROFILING DURING HOT-MIX ASPHALT CONSTRUCTION
• CONTEXT-SENSITIVE CONSTRUCTION SOLUTIONS
• DEPLOYMENT OF WIRELESS MOBILE DETECTION AND SURVEILLANCE FOR DATA-INTENSIVE APPLICATIONS
• EFFECT OF MATERIAL TRANSFER DEVICES ON FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT SMOOTHNESS
• EVALUATING NONNUCLEAR MEASUREMENT DEVICES TO DETERMINE IN-PLACE PAVEMENT DENSITY (WITH DISCUSSION AND CLOSURE)
• INNOVATIVE STRATEGIES ON DALLAS HIGH FIVE PROJECT
• KENTUCKY TRANSPORTATION CABINET'S STATEWIDE SYSTEM FOR LESSONS LEARNED
• LIFE-CYCLE COST ANALYSIS-EMBEDDED MONTE CARLO APPROACH FOR MODELING PAY ADJUSTMENT AT STATE DEPARTMENTS OF TRANSPORTATION
• MATURITY METHOD APPLIED TO HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION
• PROCESS FOR SELECTING INNOVATIVE QUALITY ASSURANCE PRACTICES FOR MATERIALS
• STRINGLINE EFFECTS ON CONCRETE PAVEMENT CONSTRUCTION