(Fifth Road) Washington Boulevard Improvement Project 2010

Click link to see news release: http://www.jis.gov.jm/news/114-transport-works/28998-widened-washington-boulevard-officially-opened.

The Fifth Road (Washington Boulevard Improvement Project) is located between Molynes and Constant Spring Road; two heavily traveled corridors in St. Andrew and is itself one of the main routes for traversing between Kingston and St. Catherine.

The focus of this project was to expand this section of Washington Boulevard from two lanes to six lanes with the east bound and west bound carriageways separated by a median. The main items of this project included the construction of nine bridge structures, the installation of over 5000 meters of High Density Polyethylene storm water drains along with over 120 manholes/inlets, the installation of a new sewer line system and new water lines. A major item of work was the reconstruction and expansion of Washington Blvd., and the reconstruction of the entire Washington Blvd/Red Hills Rd Interchange including all four on and off ramps.

Washington Blvd., historically Fifth Road; serves as a major link between Kingston and other parishes to the west. This made the project a challenging one, having to carrying out the necessary construction activities while maintaining traffic flow in both west and east at all times. This required us to divide the project into phases and incorporate strategic traffic management and safety practices.

Timing and speed of work was of utmost importance as the project area was subjected to high volumes of water. This issue predominantly affected our excavation for storm water drain and our bridge foundation, and required us to implement means of diverting flowing gully waters from our work areas.

Another feature of the project, based on the fact that it is located in a highly urbanized area is that we had to work around, over and through several utilities from the various utility companies which in many instances hampered the works from proceeding as planned.

The delays caused by ongoing utility relocations had a big impact on the project schedule pushing back completion of the early phases of the project by several months. Through strategic planning, our project team was able to jump to the later phases of work in order to help cushion the effects of the delays on the project.

There were number of variations to the contract, increasing the scope of works provided in the original contract subsequently resulting in an approved extension to the contract. This extension was approximately 5 months pushing the new completion date to September 30, 2011.