A major contract in the United States for Bouygues Construction: a tunnel in Miami worth 440 million euros
Bouygues Travaux Publics, a subsidiary of Bouygues Construction, is to build a road tunnel in Miami, Florida, for 440 million euros. The contract was awarded by the Miami Access Tunnel project management company (1) in the framework of a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) signed with the Florida Department of Transportation.
The tunnel will provide the Port of Miami with a second access road, which will be crucial for its development. Situated on Dodge Island, the port is currently served by only a single highway. The new access road, which will link in with the interstate network and MacArthur Causeway, will become the principal route for trucks, decongesting downtown Miami by removing the freight traffic now obliged to pass through it.
The works will chiefly consist of:
• Widening of MacArthur's Causeway by six metres over a length of 800 metres.
• Construction of two parallel tunnels, each of them 1,100 metres long and 12.3metres in diameter, along with access roads.
• Layout of roads linking up with the port's road network.
• Electromechanical engineering for the underground sections (ventilation, fire detection and extinction, power supply).
• Automatic traffic control system.
• Construction of operational buildings.
The project will begin in mid-2010 and will last four and a half years (55 months). It will involve roughly 750 people at peak periods.
Bouygues Construction is already active in North America, with the construction of Surrey Hospital in Vancouver, Canada. This facility, being built under a PPP agreement, is due to be brought into service in mid-2011.
(1) Miami Access Tunnel consists of the Meridiam investment fund and Bouygues Travaux Publics.