Fort Lauderdale Airport Runway Groundbreaking

Finally, after much opposition from local residents, The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Broward County officials have broke ground on Monday, January 23, 2012 to build a runway at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Broward County, Florida that is about six (6) stories above the ground, taxiing over the Florida East Coast Railway and SR 5 (US 1) travel lanes. The project will cost about $760 million to build.

The length of the runway will be about 8,000 feet and will run parallel to Griffin Road. The width of this facility will be about 150 feet wide, which is about 40 feet narrower than the wingspan of a 747 Boeing jet (this is the largest aircraft that will be allowed to travel in this runway). What also makes this project fascinating is that it will be only the second runway spanning over a federal highway.

This project will contain many roadway and structural elements, including runway and taxiway bridges, Mechanically Stabilized Earth (MSE) walls, embankments, new/widened roadways, and more.

There are a couple of items that will make this project challenging. First, there are many wetlands with vegetation that will require relocation (much of this is currently on-going). Also, the site is known to have considerable amounts of unsuitable foundation materials such as silts, organic soils and assorted debris fill (i.e. tires, plastic, metal, etc.). Considerable effort will be required to mitigate effects of these unsuitable soils to the proposed roadway/structures from a geotechnical engineering perspective in regards to deep foundations, retaining wall foundations and roadway embankments.

Actual construction is anticipated to start in April 2012 and completion of the project is scheduled for September 2014.

For the original article in the Miami Herald click here.

Posted by: Reinaldo Villa