An innovative management approach helps complete a 40-year-old highway project under budget.

That’s the challenge the Illinois Tollway faced in designing, bidding and building the newly opened I-355 South Extension in southwest suburban Chicago. This daunting goal was met by a creative rethinking of the bid and design process by the Tollway; V3 Companies, Woodridge, Ill.; and HNTB, Chicago. And the true miracle is that in the process of redefining the typical management approach, the project came in $10 million under budget.

The 12.5-mile-long I-355 South Extension connects two of Northeast Illinois’ busiest interstates.

The road-building project itself posed its own set of challenges: 28 bridges, 80 lane-miles of pavement, three endangered species’ habitats, and that 40-year history of starts and stops. The ceremony and fanfare of the Nov. 11, 2007, opening of the 12.5-mile extension—named Veterans Memorial Tollway—culminated an effort that started in the 1960s with early alignment planning to connect two of Northeast Illinois’ busiest interstates.

For its first 25 years, the project laid more or less dormant, until the early 1990s when the Illinois Tollway commissioned the extension’s design. The extension linking I-55 and I-80 was seen as the best solution to ease traffic volumes that were soaring as a result of suburban growth and heavy truck traffic through distribution hubs on I-55. However, at the time the project was resurrected, no one knew that the real challenges were just beginning.

In 1995, following installation of some structural columns that would support the south extension ramps at the I-355 and I-55 interchange, the project stalled. For years, the columns stood empty, monuments to the challenges being mounted against the extension.

In 1996, opponents of the extension challenged the method used to determine the need for the road itself. The courts agreed that, because the initial study did not fully evaluate the no-build option, the project could not move ahead. In addition, environmental groups expressed concern over the I-355 South Extension’s signature feature, a 1.3-mile-long, 125-foot-wide bridge that traverses the Des Plaines River Valley. This environmentally sensitive valley is habitat to three endangered species: the Indiana Bat, the Hine’s Emerald Dragonfly, and the Blanding’s Turtle.

Several years later, the Tollway was ultimately able to prove that the traffic conditions in Chicago’s southwest suburbs necessitated building the road. After diligent efforts, the supplemental environmental impact statement was approved in 2002, clearing the final legal hurdle for the extension.

Then the funding hurdles appeared. Once the project became mired in the legal wrangling, funds that had been earmarked for the project were reallocated to more pressing projects. Finally, in 2004, the funding mechanisms kicked in when the Tollway committed $730 million for the I-355 South Extension as part of a system-wide, $6.3 billion Congestion-Relief Program.

It took decades, but it began to appear that the I-355 South Extension would finally be constructed. But in keeping with the program’s history of encountering speed bumps, in analyzing the program it quickly became apparent that the $730 million budget figure did not anticipate skyrocketing construction expenses tied to dramatic inflation in oil and raw material costs. In fact, the shortfall seemed to be at least $70 million, following an independent estimate of construction costs for the corridor that projected the project’s cost could exceed $800 million.

Surmounting the problems
It was clear that this project would not be business as usual. Confronted with what appeared to be an insurmountable budget gap, the Tollway Engineering Department turned for assistance to the construction management team at V3 Companies, which was charged with managing the retrofit of the decade-old plans and overseeing construction of the new stretch of tollway. In addition to factoring in the skyrocketing cost of raw materials, oil, and labor, the team realized that in the time since the extension was first planned, traffic volumes had climbed to the point where the original design was now untenable. So the team had to add additional lanes at some of the interchanges and take into account land use changes adjacent to the proposed alignment, in addition to the cost pressures hampering the original design.

The design team had to take into account land use changes adjacent to the decade-old, proposed roadway alignment.

In a move that reflected the problem-solution approach that characterized the entire project to date, the Tollway team implemented a series of value-engineering solutions and budget strategies to overcome the funding shortfall. Two strategies proved to have the greatest impact—an innovative bid-packaging strategy and inclusion of a performance-based specification option on the 1.3-mile bridge over the Des Plaines River Valley. As a result, a $70 million funding deficit became a $10 million budget surplus.

When it was first designed in the early 1990s, the project was divided into seven, roughly equal sections of highway. The original program was set up so the contractor awarded each section would be responsible for completing each construction phase of that section, from excavation through paving. While standard practice for most highway construction projects, this method resulted in very large contracts. This had the effect of limiting the ability of smaller, local contractors to bid competitively on the work and greatly narrowed the pool of prospective bidders and competition that would lead to the more aggressive bids.

The Tollway, Corridor Program Manager V3 Companies, and Program Management Organization (PMO) HNTB decided the best approach was to divide and conquer. The team repackaged the project’s many components into smaller, specific projects with smaller scopes. The strategy worked because a greater number and range of contractors could competitively bid on the repackaged construction contracts.

The original seven contracts for the corridor work were broken down into 18 smaller scopes of work, including many that were specialized activities. For example, there were three mass earthwork and drainage contracts, a cross-road bridge contract, and multiple contracts comprised primarily of mainline paving.

The $10 million in cost savings was not the only benefit of this bid repackaging strategy. Because it enabled the Tollway to award contracts to smaller companies that normally would have been unable to chase a larger project, most of the $730 million budget was allocated to companies from within the region, which helped bolster public support for the project.

Bridging design challenges
With the bid repackaging concept helping to get the project back on track, the team started to explore other opportunities to reduce costs. They focused on some of the higher-cost components of the project, such as the design for construction of the Des Plaines River Valley Bridge.

The original I-355 South Extension plans included two bridge designs—a segmental precast concrete box design and a steel delta frame design. The contractors could bid on either of the design alternates, both of which included significant aesthetic considerations that were no longer a priority to the Tollway given the current economic climate and the project’s cost.

The PMO suggested that a performance-based specification alternate might produce a more cost-effective solution, while still allowing for completion of the bridge within the limited time available for construction. To implement the performance-based specification option, V3 and HNTB formed a task force that evaluated delivery strategies and helped create specifications for the bridge contract. Bidding contractors were allowed to price out either of the two original bridge designs or propose their own alternate design to meet the newly defined spec package.

The winning contractor reviewed the original designs and decided to go back to the drawing board and design its own structure. Walsh Construction’s $125 million structure came in $8 million below the next most competitive bid, which was based on the original bridge design. Again, the team showed that a different approach to project management could prove to be cost effective while ensuring a quality end product.

In the end, a willingness of the Tollway, V3, and HNTB to pursue a creative, value-added approach to managing the project proved to be the difference between a project that came in on target and below budget and one that would have languished even longer through funding cycles. The innovative bid packaging strategy and the bridge’s performance-based specification approach not only made up the deficit created by inflation and cost increases, but also put $10 million back into the Tollway’s coffers for redeployment on its next project.

The 40-year wait to solve a major traffic issue in the Chicago area is now over. The I-355 Extension project’s success not only helps relieve traffic congestion in one of the country’s fastest growing regions, but also serves as a prime example of how determination, collaboration, and innovation in transportation program design and management can solve what appear to be insurmountable hurdles.

Tom Valaitis, P.E., director of public sector construction services, V3 Companies, Woodridge, Ill., was corridor program manager for the I-355 South Extension project.