DOTD TIMED Program recognized by American Road and Transportation Builders Association for innovation
Tuesday, November 19, 2013 at 10:31:48 AM

BATON ROUGE, La. – The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development was recently recognized by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association with a "Dr. J. Don Brock TransOvation Award." The award honored DOTD’s Transportation Infrastructure Model for Economic Development as a model of innovation for accelerating the completion of the largest infrastructure revitalization program in Louisiana’s history.

"By using an expedited process, DOTD achieved maximum cost-savings and efficiency," said DOTD Secretary Sherri H. LeBas, P.E. "We are honored to be recognized for our efforts in completing projects in the TIMED Program."

The "Dr. J. Don Brock TransOvation Award" honors innovative transportation infrastructure-related products, services, technologies and techniques that:

  • Quantifiably document and provide a high return-on-investment by improving transportation safety
  • Save transportation users and tax-payers time and/or money
  • Make our transportation infrastructure more environmentally sustainable

DOTD’s winning entry earned top honors in the "Innovative Contracting: Fixed-Price, Best Design Procurement" category. The award was presented at the TransOvation Workshop, held on Oct. 28-30 in San Jose, California.

To expedite the delivery of the projects, a program manager was brought on board in 2002 and innovative project delivery methods were also put in place, such as expediting right-of-way methods, utility relocations, and environmental permitting. These factors have allowed delivery of projects 20 years sooner than the original 2031 completion date.

The TIMED Program is the single largest transportation infrastructure improvement program in Louisiana’s history. Projects in the $5.2 billion program included widening 536 miles of state highways, constructing the John James Audubon Bridge, and widening the Huey P. Long Bridge in Jefferson Parish. It also included improvements to both the Port of New Orleans and Louis Armstrong International Airport. The program is funded with a dedicated 4-cents-per-gallon gas tax approved in 1989 by the state legislature and voters.

All but two of the projects in the program are complete. The construction of a new Fort Buhlow Bridge over the Red River on U.S. 71/U.S. 165 in Alexandria is underway and is scheduled to be complete in summer 2016. Work is also underway on a project to widen U.S. 167 in Dry Prong from two to five lanes and will be complete in summer 2014.

The widened roadways, new bridges, and expanded ports created by the Louisiana TIMED Program are benefitting the residents of Louisiana by creating economic development opportunities for business, improving vital evacuation routes, and making critical freight corridors safer and more efficient. The project has also delivered job creation as thousands of Louisiana workers are building these projects every day.

The Program Manager is Louisiana TIMED Managers, a joint venture of GEC Inc., Parsons Brinckerhoff, and THE LPA GROUP INCORPORATED.

To learn more about the TransOvation award winners and the overall competition, visit: http://bit.ly/1hFtmPw.

For information on the TIMED Program, go to www.timedla.com.