Share the Road: Challenges and Opportunities Facing Joint Pipeline and Roadway Construction Contracts

Abstract

Dallas Water Utilities (DWU) supplies treated water to 2.3M people in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan area (DFW). The East Side Water Treatment Plant (ESWTP) is a 440-MGD plant that has the capacity to meet nearly half the City of Dallas’ customer demands including its wholesale customer cities. A regional large diameter pipeline project called the Southwest 120/96-inch Water Transmission Pipeline Project (Southwest Pipeline) will provide redundancy and increase service capacity to meet the growth of current and future DWU customers in Southern Dallas County. The Southwest Pipeline will serve multiple jurisdictions over its 32 miles of urban area. During the planning stages of the project, multiple roadway expansion projects were identified along the pipeline corridor that would overlap with the pipeline project and involve coordination with multiple jurisdictions and agencies. In many cases, joint construction contracts were deemed the best delivery method for both the roadway and the pipeline projects. The coordination between the multiple agencies for joint construction contracts presents both challenges and opportunities. This paper will discuss the challenges and opportunities facing joint pipeline and roadway construction projects and will cover lessons learned during several phases of the project, including planning, design, bidding, and construction.