Freeway construction stalled by bankruptcy gets rolling again

07:42 PM CDT on Monday, August 22, 2005

By Dan Lauck / 11 News

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If you were more than 90 percent finished with mowing the lawn, chances are you wouldn't stop to take a break -- you'd finish the job.

For months commuters on the East Freeway noticed a similar situation with an unfinished project so close to completion.

The date was June 24. Work on the East Freeway was 97 percent complete. Long white stretches of the concrete roadway lay there, waiting. And it all came to a halt.

The construction company, Contractor Technology Limited (CTI) was bankrupt.

Hundreds of pieces of heavy equipment and trucks sat idle.

CTI's nine projects in Houston, including bridges, highways, and city streets all stopped at the same time.

"This job was especially unfortunate because it was so close," said Quincy Allen, TxDOT engineer. "We've got about two weeks work left here. We were that close."

For commuters who had driven the squeezed-down lanes for months, this project had to be especially galling.

They could see how close it was to completion.

A St. Louis company, McCarthy Construction, was hired and on the job in less than two months.

It has to replace four stretches of concrete, roughly 300 yards each, which failed a strength test.

Then workers clean up, stripe the lanes, and move the barriers. They expect every lane to be open on the morning of Sept. 12.

When they finish, the East Freeway will have eight lanes, which is what it had before.

But the highway was built in the 60s, so you can imagine what kind of condition it was in. In fact, you probably remember what kind of condition it was in.

Quincy Allen, the state's area engineer, had lived through small projects waylaid by bankruptcies -- but nothing like this. "It was very challenging for the public. Very challenging for us," he said.

Houston's drivers don't really need more challenges. Just driving here is challenge enough.