VDOT Fredericksburg District Megaprojects Program Support Services (FRED EX)

Via the Fredericksburg District MegaProjects Program Support Services Contract, RS&H is providing scope validation, engineering review, general, engineering and construction management support services to Fredericksburg District during the procurement, phased design, and construction of the I-95 Fredericksburg Extension P3 project.

The concessionaire executed the full design build contract with Branch-Flatiron Joint Venture (BFJV) in June 2019. In order to stay within a tight project schedule, an Early Works agreement was executed prior to the full contract in order to begin geotechnical exploration and utility location work. The project goal is to reduce congestion on I-95 in the vicinity of the Route 610 and Route 17 interchanges by adding express lanes in the median. This includes adding 10 miles of new two-lane bi-directional roadway, four flyover bridges, replacement of the Truslow Road and American Legion Bridges that span the corridor, and one additional bridge on the express lanes over Potomac Creek.

The RS&H team is reviewing the D-B’s milestone plan submissions and corresponding technical reports for the following: Early Works, Advanced Works, R/W, and RFC packages that have been broken down into 70 design submittal deliverable packets with up to four reviews each. During review, RS&H is responsible for multiple engineering disciplines including: roadway, drainage, SWM, ESC, MOT/SOC, constructability review and project controls.

Multiple document control systems have been used and are unique to this project. The contract between the concessionaire and the Commonwealth requires the concessionaire to supply the official document management system (DMS). The concessionaire has implemented Aconex as the DMS. All official document transfers, such as correspondence, submittals, RFI’s, and Applications for Payment, from all contractual parties involved with this project, requires Aconex to be utilized. While the concessionaire requires the use of their DMS for official submissions, the BFJV is using ProCore for their internal and daily DMS needs. RS&H has access to ProCore to review documents during construction quality audits. VDOT, as an agency, utilizes ProjectWise for most preconstruction DMS needs and PlanGrid during construction and for some design build projects. As the Owner’s Representative on the project, RS&H utilizes all these DMS’s to fulfill our responsibilities. Since VDOT and RS&H utilize ProjectWise, we have decided that ProjectWise would be VDOT’s DMS for preconstruction activities. This has helped the owner’s team to expedite document reviews and compile information prior to responding. After construction documents, such as approved plans are approved, they are transferred to PlanGrid for the inspectors to utilize on tablets. When sheets are revised due to field changes, RFI’s, NCR’s or other reasons, the affected sheets are uploaded to PlanGrid. When the field personnel open the project in PlanGrid they have the most up to date plans and information necessary to complete their daily activities.

As the project advances, RS&H will continue to perform various project support assignments as requested by VDOT. Those assignments may include independent cost estimates for change/work orders, review/ analysis of baseline schedule revisions, shop drawing reviews, permit revision reviews, consulting/ coordination efforts between this project and the I-95 Courthouse Road DB, SB I-95 RRC and NB I-95 RRC, and active participation in project meetings with the concessionaire, VDOT, the D-B Team, FHWA, and other stakeholders.
The RS&H Team will continue to play a critical role as VDOT/owner representative through project closeout. Additional support requests may include other design analysis, traffic and ITS operations/analysis, project closeout activities, and further coordination efforts among other items.