Atkins, Stantec, and BCC serve on design team for Miami-Dade Express Lanes project

Tampa, Fla. — The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) District Six awarded a $243.6 million design-build contract to the Community/Condotte/de Moya Joint Venture to implement FDOT’s Palmetto Expressway/I-75 Express Lanes project, which will add tolled express lanes to portions of the Palmetto Expressway (SR 826) and I-75 in Miami-Dade County, northwest of the City of Miami, Florida. Atkins — in collaboration with Stantec and BCC Engineering — has been selected to serve as a project designer.

The project will add about 13 miles of variable-tolled express lanes to the Palmetto Expressway and I-75 — a heavily traveled freeway that frequently carries more than 250,000 vehicles per day. A “flyover” will also be constructed to connect the new express lanes on I-75 and the Palmetto Expressway. According to the FDOT District Six website, the purpose of the project is to improve mobility, relieve congestion, accommodate future growth and development, enhance emergency evacuation, and improve connectivity with other limited-access roadways in South Florida.

Atkins will be paid a multi-million-dollar fee for providing design, civil engineering, and architecture services for structures, surveys, landscaping, and tolling and intelligent transportation systems. Atkins senior engineer Jeremy Bourdon, P.E., served as project manager for the pursuit, and he attributes Atkins’ selection to several strategies. “We chose to team up with Stantec and BCC Engineering because of their collective resume, local staff, materials access, and corridor knowledge,” he said. “Not only did our team receive the top technical score, but we also priced the job aggressively.”

Atkins has decades of experience in successfully providing expressway and tollway engineering and design services for dozens of toll agencies from Florida (Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise) to California (Contra Costa Transportation Authority); and has provided toll-related consultant services for capital improvements valued at more than $25 billion nationwide. Atkins leads the way in helping clients take advantage of today’s trends in toll technology and operations, including all-electronic tolling, video tolling, open road tolling, shared and streamlined customer service center operations, and express/managed lanes.