New Jersey Highway Team Nets Gold Award for Route 18 Project

“Missing Link” Project Preserved 18 th Century Architectural Remains While Unleashing 21 st Century Mobility

Austin, TX/September14, 2005 —The National Partnership for Highway Quality (NPHQ) announced today that its highly-competitive 2005 Gold Award will go to the New Jersey Department of Transportation and other team members, including engineering firm, Gannett Fleming, Inc., and contractor, Slattery Skanska, responsible for realizing the Route 18 Extension in Middlesex County. The project was cited as a “demonstration of the values of teamwork, innovation, and value to the customer.”

Announcing the award was Bob Templeton, executive director of NPHQ, a partnership combining federal, state, and roadway industry leaders and officials in a shared advocacy of “customer-centered” practices to produce better, safer, more user-friendly roads and bridges that are completed faster, last longer, and minimize congestion and inconvenience.

Templeton said that the Route 18 extension work not only eliminated a severe congestion bottleneck of long standing but completed the “missing link” in the New Jersey state highway system in Piscataway Township. Complicating the project, he said, was what lay beneath—archeological remains and artifacts of Raritan Landing, an historic eighteenth century port community.

In fact, no work could begin before the New Jersey team completed a $5.8 million data recovery project to preserve the historic remains—later constituting the largest single archeological data recovery ever sponsored by NJDOT, and whose treasures later were exhibited to the state at large.

Once the rest of the work actually could begin, numerous innovative techniques were employed, allowing the new extension to be opened to roadway users ahead of schedule and within the original budget. Context-sensitive solutions were made part of the plans, including numerous aesthetic enhancements that harmonized with the rich heritage of Raritan Landing. Touches such as stained architectural concrete detailing on surfaces of bridge abutments, walls, and piers, as well as elements like haunch girders

and decorative lighting, allowed the “missing link” to be smoothly integrated into the landscape. In addition, two miles of multi-use paths with historic interpretive signing enhance the quality of life for residents and tourists.

“Few projects were as multi-faceted as this one was,” said Templeton, “and in awarding this honor we looked at how the New Jersey team handled the many competing aspects of the project—archeological/historical, environmental, socioeconomic. By putting together an extensive communications network and enlisting public support for every element, the project team built the kind of consensus that made the work that much smoother and more rewarding. Now everyone can take pride in the results, and the rest of the nation can learn from them.”

NPHQ is composed of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), the Texas Transportation Institute, the Foundation for Pavement Preservation, the National Institute for Certification in Engineering Technologies, the American Highway Users Alliance, The Associated General Contractors of America, the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, Kiewit Corporation, and the URS Corporation.

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