VDOT announces Hampton Roads bridge-tunnel RFQ

For the tunnel portion of the work, teams may present their capabilities in immersed-tube tunnelling, bored tunnelling or both methods.

Following a briefing to the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) on December 6, and concurrence from the Transportation Public-Private Partnership Steering Committee on December 12 VDOT has issued a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for interested teams to share their capabilities and experience to best deliver the HRBT as a design-build contract under the Public-Private Transportation Act (PPTA). The current project planning estimate is between USD 3.3bn and USD 3.8bn, which will be refined as the scope is more fully developed.

The HRBT Expansion project will build another bridge-tunnel and widen the four-lane segments of Interstate 64 in Hampton and Norfolk to ease daily congestion between the Peninsula and South Hampton Roads, a corridor vital to Virginia’s economy, military readiness and regional connectivity. Traffic on the HRBT’s existing four lanes exceeds 100,000 vehicles per day during peak summer traffic.

RFQ responses are due to VDOT by March 2, 2018, with qualified short-listed teams to be notified in April 2018. These short-listed teams will then be issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) to obtain detailed information on their technical approach to deliver the project, as well as binding price proposals. The RFP process is anticipated to start in spring 2018, with the contract award planned for early 2019. Construction is expected to begin in mid-2019 and reach completion in 2024.

Further information about the HRBT Expansion, including procurement details and the project’s planning-level design concept, which will be refined by the proposer teams during the RFP phase is available at:[www.HRBTexpansion.org]