Replacement of the Kosciuszko Bridge, a $550 million project in the Queens borough of New York City, is reportedly on time and on budget, with the first of two of the bridge’s cable-stayed spans expected to open in the spring of 2017, Crain’s New York Business reports.
The bridge’s on-time status is attributed to the design-build process which allowed engineering and construction to be contracted together rather than separately. The Citizens Budget Commission estimated that design-build could save the city $2 billion over 10 years. The only problem? Legislators have approved it only for a handful of state-run projects and have refused to grant the city permission to employ it for city-run jobs.
That’s why the issue is the No. 1 legislative priority for city Department of Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg, who is beginning work on a $1.7 billion repair of the BQE’s cantilevered roadway through Brooklyn Heights. “I still have to use traditional design-bid-build, which, frankly, will add years to the project and tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of dollars,” Trottenberg told Crain’s. “It just makes no sense.”
