On the Red Line

Expanding the Metro mass-transit system in Washington, D.C., takes some new turns as it builds the New York Avenue station on the Red Line, the city’s busiest rail line. The design-build project should be completed in 2005.

by Clair Urbain

The near-northeast side of Washington, D.C., will soon become a destination instead of a forgotten neighborhood. The area, vibrant in the first half of the 20th century, is one of the Capitol’s most blighted neighborhoods today. The construction of Metro’s New York Avenue station will give the old neighborhood immediate access to mass transit that promises to attract new buildings, new businesses and new life.

Historic past
The area has long been a pass-through area, with Amtrak, Metro and MARC trains whisking passengers through the northeast side of the city, says Damian Ruppert, project manager for Slattery Skanska. Slattery Skanska and Lane Construction have established a joint venture to work with the design firm, Jacobs Engineering, and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to build the $103 million station.

The neighborhood can only get better. The U-Line Arena, where the Beatles performed their first act in the United States, stands empty next to the train line, most recently used as a garbage transfer station.

On the west side of the station’s site, little remains of the businesses between M Street NE and New York Avenue. The rail trestles in the coal yard, where Pennsylvania coal came in on rail cars, are long gone and the contaminated soil from years of coal dumping has been removed or remediated. Trees that took over the abandoned yards have been removed and the neglected area will soon be home to the U. S. Department of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms’ new building to be built next to the new train station.

 “Slattery has been involved with building the Metro in Washington, D.C., as well as lines in Boston, New York and Atlanta. This is the first time that Metro is expanding the line within the system. All other expansions have been at the end of established lines,” he says.

Building a new station along existing, very busy rail lines presents some significant challenges to designers, contractors and workers. Typically, a train runs by the site every six minutes.

“This is called an in-line or fill-in station because it is in line with the existing operating line,” says Ruppert. “This is the first time that Metro has built a station on rail line that is already running.”

Site preparation
Slattery Skanska was involved with the site preparation, which took one year and cost over $5 million. “We had to remove 100,000 tons of contaminated soil where the coal yard was, plus remove heavy brush that grew on the site. When it was cleared, everyone remarked that you will be able to see the dome of the Capitol building from the station platform. It will become very attractive real estate,” he says.

The Metro station construction falls within 12' of the operating rail lines. “In the New York City subway system, most of the lines have two sets of double tracks, one for local trains and another set for express trains. The two sets of tracks allow shutting down one line temporarily for work or maintenance. But the Metro’s Red Line has only two sets of tracks, so there is no way we can reroute the trains or shut the line down for any length of time. The line must stay available throughout construction,” he says.

The project stretches over 1,650' long next to the present tracks. Because the station sits only partially on the built-up bed for the train track, the western side of the station, tracks and bicycle path must be built on an elevated structure. Slattery Skanska is self-performing about 60 percent of the work, most of it cast-in-place concrete.

“To stabilize the railroad bed and protect the existing track, we had to drive 800 linear ft. of steel sheeting and tie it back under the railroad bed. This assured the railroad bed remained stable as we built the retaining wall for the station. The sheeting was left in place after the retaining wall was built and we backfilled right over it,” he says.

The west side of the station, which will accommodate trains going downtown, is being built on columns and reinforced pre-cast concrete beams. “The track must transition off its present alignment, then over Florida Avenue on an overhead bridge that will be repositioned to carry the track onto the elevated columns.

“We have to extend the bridge abutments another 20', then we will pick up the 194-ton bridge and place it on the new abutments. This should be completed before the end of the year,” he says.

As engineers looked at installing the abutment for the transition bridge, they considered driving pre-cast concrete piles into the ground near Florida Avenue. “But a closer inspection revealed a 120-year-old brick sewer that might collapse from the drilling operations. So instead, we went with poured caissons to support the abutment and elevated train track,” Ruppert says.

Anyone working with cranes or on scaffolding near the track must follow specific rules to minimize the chance that any material would fall onto the track. Workers are also trained about proper grounding procedures needed around the electrified third rail that powers the passing trains.

Because the frame of the structure is made with pre-cast components, the 54-ton platform beams and 49-ton cross beams had to be put in place at night when trains are not running.

It’s a bicycle station, too
The new train station will also be a key link in the eight-mile bicycling/hiking corridor between the Union Station downtown with the suburbs in Silver Spring.

“The station has two bicycle path access points that allow users to roll their bikes onto a specially designed groove that makes it easy for bikers to take their bikes up the steps.

“In the original design, we were going to cast these steps in place, but because of the design-build approach on this job, we reconsidered doing that and decided to use pre-cast steps. Using pre-cast steps allows us to save some significant time and money,” he says.

“Slattery Skanska has done many design-build projects, but this is only my second and it is Metro’s first. I really like it because we are located in the same field office as the owner. If we need to make any changes, we go downstairs and talk about it. We can make changes very easily. We have found several ways to do the job more efficiently and safer than what we had first envisioned,” he says.

To bring the station online in phases, the first inbound track will be connected and put into service over a three-day weekend. The new outbound track will then be constructed where the old inbound track used to run. Then, over another three-day weekend, the new outbound track will be put into service and the station will be operational.

“What makes this unique is that at every phase of the operation, it must be certified that the automatic train control system is fully operational. It must go like clockwork because we can’t have the Red Line out of service at any other time. If that happens, we pay liquidated damages,” Ruppert says.

Funding
“This is the first Metro project that uses a mixture of public and private funding,” says Ruppert. “The federal government is paying $25 million; private partnerships that include neighborhood developers are paying $25 million and the District of Columbia is paying $40 million. The Washington Area Bicycle Association is also paying $6 million for the design and construction of the bike trail component of the job,” he says.

Published in the March/April 2003 issue of Contractor Tools and Supplies magazine.

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