Intermodal Terminal Projects
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Modern intermodal terminal facilities, such as those described here, utilize state-of-the-art concrete technology to meet design, construction, operational, and maintenance requirements.

The concrete applications included in the following concrete intermodal terminal projects demonstrate the economical and durable facilities that owners need, the versatility and strength that designers want, and the catalyst for growth and renewal that municipalities desire.

Passenger Transfer Stations

Clean, attractive stations and facilities at passenger terminals—whether above ground, at grade, or underground—become the focal points for transfer between transportation modes. Concrete’s strength, durability, and fire-resistance result in a safe, long-lasting structure. Concrete’s plasticity allows for an almost unlimited variety of shapes, forms, and textures.

Rail Transit Station—Medical Center Rapid Transit Station, Atlanta, Georgia
The Medical Center Station on the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority’s North Line in Atlanta, Georgia, opened in time for the Olympic Games in June 1996. The station is designed as a simple architectural statement, responsive to its role as a transportation center and the need to guide, direct, and shelter thousands of passengers daily. Adapted to its unique site, the station is embedded in a hillside parallel to the rail line and is entered from above, at the concourse level. The station is roofed by a simple barrel vault in the tradition of great rail stations and train sheds of the past. The entrance plazas and vaulted concourse level become civic spaces organized to receive patrons from all directions.

The building frame is made of reinforced concrete columns, steel trusses, and long-span metal roof decking; it rests on a concrete spread footing foundation. The station walls and the two elevator shafts are of cast-in-place concrete to address the owner’s needs for low maintenance and a specified 100-year projected service life. To create visual interest, these walls have been articulated into fields of formliner-finished concrete surrounded by bands of hand-rubbed finish. Triangular trusses were used to create the clear span of the barrel vault. Concrete floating slab construction was utilized for vibration control of the trackway, in consideration of two nearby hospitals.

Bus Transfer Station—North End Turnaround Facility, Tacoma, Washington
Concrete is the primary building material used to construct the Pierce Transit’s North End Turnaround Facility in Tacoma, Washington. It is a 400-foot (122-m) long single-story concrete “bus barn” that opens onto Commerce Street at each end and is the foundation of a new theatre (and future six-story office building) and supports a performing arts assembly plaza and a waterfall/fountain/hillclimb.

Cast-in-place concrete was the logical construction material considering the project parameters: isolation of the theatre above from five lanes of bus traffic below; the need to support several feet of soil in planters and water in pools; and emergency vehicle access to the plaza. The west wall serves as a retaining wall for the tunneled bus lanes, with adjacent heavily trafficked Broadway Avenue being supported immediately above. Part of the waterfall pool and planter structure is formed by three-fourths of the east wall.

A pedestrian ramp snakes through more than 60 cast-in-place concrete waterfall and landscaping containers. The ramp connects the new plaza with the bus transfer area below, also constructed of cast-in-place concrete. The complex geometry, combined with watertightness, seismic resistance, and durability considerations, made concrete the logical choice for this $9 million transit project.

Rail/Bus Transfer Station—Hamilton Commuter Rail Terminal, Ontario, Canada
The GO Transit commuter rail terminal in Hamilton, Ontario, is the western terminus of the Lakeshore Line. This transit station opened in 1996, and includes a large bus transfer platform on the lower level. The station itself is an old rail terminal that was partially demolished to make room for the bus platform, while the original ticket area was refurbished. Concrete was used to provide a clean, strong, and attractive pavement for the buses.

The rail platform on the upper level is separated from the bus platform by a massive cast-in-place concrete retaining wall designed to withstand the rail loading from the tracks above. The new wall is finished with a sandblasted surface texture that blends in well with the older existing terminal structure. The rail platform provides access to two tracks. During the rehabilitation, the platform was extended and resurfaced with a new cast-in-place concrete slab.

Bus Transfer Station—Convention Place Station, Seattle, Washington
Following the design approach established for the Downtown Seattle, Washington, Transit Project, the $16 million Convention Place Station was built in 1990 to fit and reflect its neighborhood. A combination of cast-in-place concrete columns, girders, and waffle slabs was selected as the preferred structural framing system. The station structure itself was designed like a large table, needing the stiffness of concrete legs (columns) because it stands completely separated by seismic joints from the surrounding walls.

One key entrance is framed with an open concrete waffle slab infilled with precast concrete and glass block panels that allow lighting to pass from below. Perimeter walls blend concrete caissons with architecturally treated facing walls. This retaining wall system was deemed to be the most efficient long-term solution for poor foundation soils.

At the street level, cast-in-place concrete is used for basic pavement, walls, and elevator shaft structures. The architectural design of the bus platform level extends the feel of the adjacent freeway’s retaining walls by using cast-in-place concrete in both smooth and rough textures. Precast concrete specialty pieces, such as landscaping planters, complete the structure.

Rail/Bus Transfer Station—Watt/I-80 LRT Station, Sacramento, California
The abandonment of a bypass freeway project in Sacramento, California, helped Sacramento Regional Transit District (SRTD) realize its design philosophy of cost effectiveness when it constructed its light-rail system, which opened in 1987. Track alignment at the transit system’s north end used freeway right-of-way and even freeway facilities that were built but never used. SRTD was fortunate to be able to incorporate concrete pavement intended for freeway lanes into the transit system’s bus lanes and transfer stops in this area. The concrete pavement offers high load-carrying capacity and a clean, attractive appearance.

The light-rail terminal station at Interstate 80 and Watt Avenue, a major suburban thoroughfare, interfaces with local and express bus routes at both the at-grade rail/bus platform area and at the Watt Avenue viaduct level above. Connecting these two levels is a cast-in-place concrete and concrete masonry structure that contains elevators and stairways. The cleanness of the concrete walls and columns (also used for the platform canopy) provides a great example of enhancing concrete’s form without hiding its function—creating a strong, durable transit facility.

Passenger Platforms—Metra Passenger Terminal, Chicago, Illinois
The rehabilitation of Metra’s Passenger Terminal in downtown Chicago, Illinois, which serves 200 trains and nearly 50,000 passengers daily, improved passenger flow and service by bringing an 80-year-old rail station up to modern mass transit standards. Completed in 1996, the project included rebuilding 15 active tracks and returning another track to service, while maintaining commuter rail operations.

High-performance concrete played an underlying but important role in the upgrade. The structural engineer specified silica fume–modified concrete mixes for cast-in-place and precast applications, including the precast passenger platform panels. The 6-inch-thick x 8.5-foot x 12-foot (152-mm-thick x 2.6-m x 3.7-m) panels covered 112,000 square feet (10,400 m2). Tests confirmed that the concrete mix was suitable for skid resistance and that it would provide overall durability. Precast concrete panels offer several particular benefits: production in a controlled environment resulting in high quality and dimensional accuracy, and reduced impact and installation time at the construction site.

Canopy Shelters—Doraville Rapid Transit Station, Atlanta, Georgia
Completed in 1992, the two-level Doraville Rapid Transit Station is located on the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority’s Northeast Line in Atlanta, Georgia. The station has a concourse and busway at the surface level and elevated rail trackway and platform one level above. On the basis of extensive research and evaluation of life-cycle costing, ease of construction, and maintenance costs, the design team selected concrete for floors, walls, ceilings, and all framing elements.

The bus shelter’s canopy is a multi-span continuous folded plate structure constructed of cast-in-place concrete. It is 35 feet (10.7 m) wide x 395 feet (120 m) long. The canopy provides shelter for patrons at five standard bus bays and one bay for articulated buses. Like a similar platform canopy at the track level, it is supported on tree-shaped concrete frames.

Tactile Warning Strips
One of the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is the placing of tactile warning strips along the edges of passenger platforms. The strips are specified as 2 feet (0.6 m) wide with a pattern of raised truncated domes and are usually produced in a highly visible or contrasting color. Rail transit systems in Baltimore, San Diego, Dallas (see pictures below), and Denver have all used concrete, either cast-in-place or precast, to construct these necessary elements.

Parking Garages
Patronage demand and site constraints make parking garages necessary at many urban passenger terminals. Concern for economy, durability, and longevity has led to a demand for a new generation of high-performance parking structures. Owners want parking decks that effectively resist corrosion and require low maintenance. They want garages that will be a visual asset to their developments—structures they can be proud of, both today and for future decades. Consequently, they are specifying concrete.

Concrete parking structures, such as the attractive garage in the pictures above, located at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, offer many benefits, irrespective of whether they are of precast, cast-in-place, or composite construction. Concrete has better corrosion resistance than structural steel. Structural elements can be used aesthetically, eliminating the need for additional cladding. Concrete is a material that is naturally fire resistant, and is moldable for ease of construction of special elements and geometries. Of course, it is also durable and requires only minimal maintenance.

Trackway

For successful operations and on-time performance at rail freight terminals and passenger terminals, trackway reliability is essential. Concrete slab track with direct fixation fasteners can create a track system that provides efficiency, minimal maintenance, and long-term performance, thereby offering reliability while achieving a balance between capital costs and annual expenses (energy costs, maintenance). Concrete slab track can be found at embankment, at-grade, below-grade and underground locations.

Concrete Slab Track—Chicago Union Station, Chicago, Illinois
Installing concrete slab track with rail attached to embedded short timber ties started about 1909. In 1920, the Chicago Union Station Company installed 860,000 square feet (79,900 m2) of concrete track support in the yards and under the train sheds—about half subballast slab and half slab track—at the station in downtown Chicago, Illinois.

By the 1980s the track structure, and Chicago Union Station as a whole, had become obsolete with skyrocketing maintenance costs. Major replacement of all components was initiated jointly by Amtrak and Metra in 1991. Station and train shed tracks were reconstructed with rail fasteners cast directly into concrete in a sectional placement. This occurred after all existing rail, timber block-ties, and concrete were removed to the original subballast slab. The new tracks are easy to keep clean (especially noticeable to patrons waiting on the platforms) and are expected to last even longer than the original tracks.

Concrete Slab Track—Caemmerer West Side Yard, Manhattan, New York
In 1986, the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) completed construction of the new John D. Caemmerer West Side Yard next to Amtrak’s Penn Station. The facility stores trains that carry over 100,000 commuters into Manhattan, New York, every day. As part of this $194 million project, 284,000 square feet (26,400 m2) of continuously reinforced concrete slab was used over 27 tracks that varied in length from 800 to 1200 feet (244 to 366 m). This slab track was used in the western portion of the busy storage yard.

The track slab is 10.5 feet (3.2 m) wide and 13-1/2 inches (343 mm) thick. It was designed for a 50-year service life. Maintaining close steel reinforcement tolerances ensured that there would be no conflicts with the installation of track inserts. Concrete subballast slabs were used to carry loads where track was transitioned from slab track to conventional tie and ballast track that was used to construct the remainder of the yard.

Reasons why the LIRR chose concrete slab track include: minimizing track maintenance costs and track time necessary for future maintenance; avoiding difficult access for typical track maintenance equipment and machinery; avoiding future disruptions to operations; providing a good working surface to clean, maintain, and inspect cars; increasing reliability of the track structure; and, especially, its own experience installing two parallel 1.13-mile (1.82-km) long concrete slab tracks at Massapequa, New York, several years earlier.

Concrete Crosstie Track—Port of Los Angeles, San Pedro, California
Installation of 105,000 concrete crossties and 24 sets of high-performance concrete turnout ties are part of the improvements associated with the Port of Los Angeles, California, expansion program costing $800 million. The ties are used to improve the movement of containerized traffic from the Port onto Union Pacific and Burlington Northern-Santa Fe freight railroad lines.

The high-performance concrete turnout ties are expected to require lower maintenance than wood and better withstand the heavy loads and frequent switching at the Port. Concrete ties provide other advantages over wood, including smoother ride, better retention of track gage, reduced fuel consumption, and less environmental concern upon disposal. The turnout ties are up to 24 feet (7.3 m) long. Both standard ties and turnout ties are prestressed members designed to withstand the static and dynamic loads of 100-ton (90,700-kg) rail cars traveling at speeds up to 40 mph (64 kph) at the Port.

Pavement

Pavement quality and durability are vital to optimizing intermodal operations. Paved areas of freight terminals are subjected to heavy loads from industrial machinery moving about the facility, including forklifts, cranes, and fully loaded semi-trailers. Passenger terminals need to provide paved areas for bus transfers and automobile parking. Also, transit systems need maintenance and storage facilities for their bus fleets.

Portland cement concrete pavements have unique properties that contribute to a long service life virtually uninterrupted by repairs or maintenance. They offer superior load-carrying capacity to withstand the heaviest vehicles and machinery, with reserve strength for unforeseen overloads. They resist rutting, shoving, and indentations. Concrete pavements resist subgrade failure by spreading wheel loads, which is especially important in areas with poor soils. The permanent surface texture provides traction and safety, regardless of the weather. Concrete pavements resist chemicals, oil, and weather, all of which adversely affect asphalt. The additional advantages of a clean, attractive appearance and superior light reflectance are also provided.

Pavements used by buses need to be stronger than those used exclusively by automobiles, since bus axles typically apply heavier loads onto the pavement than the heaviest loaded semi-trailer axles found on the road. Asphalt has a tendency to move or flow, and eventually rut, under the stationary load of even an empty bus. As a matter of fact, as transit systems convert to new fuel-technology buses, pavement distress may increase, because these new buses are found to be heavier than standard diesel buses.

Whitetopped Pavement—Perry Boulevard Bus Facility, Atlanta, Georgia
As record numbers of visitors to the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, relied upon the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority system, MARTA buses needed routine maintenance to keep them moving. Fortunately, MARTA was prepared by having its new Perry Boulevard bus facility ready. According to MARTA, when its consultants designed the facility’s pavement, concrete was specified for its durability and ability to withstand fuel spillage and oil drippings.

Of the total 13-acre (52,600-m2) paving project, 4.5 acres (18,200 m2) are whitetopped with concrete. Existing asphalt is used as a base for 7 to 8 inches (180 to 200 mm) of whitetopping, reducing the required concrete thickness. A slip-form paver placed the concrete overlay. The remaining two-thirds of the project has full-depth concrete pavement.

Precast Concrete Grade Crossings
Precast concrete grade crossings are designed for ease and speed of installation, causing minimum impact on train operations and crossing vehicles. They are manufactured according to precise specifications that afford a high degree of dimensional accuracy for specific field conditions. The concrete surface provides excellent traction for rubber-tired vehicles. Concrete’s mass offers stability, and loads and pressures transferred to the supporting layers are uniformly distributed, reducing impact and deflection.

Panelized systems are used on top of wood or concrete crossties. Modular systems, such as Startrack II (shown above) at the Burlington Northern–Santa Fe Corwith Intermodal Terminal in Chicago, take the place of the common support structure of crossties and ballast.

Selected PCA and Other Concrete Industry Resources for Design and Construction of Intermodal Terminal Facilities

• Simplified Design: Reinforced Concrete Buildings of Moderate Size and Height, PCA, EB104, 1993
• Notes on ACI 318-02 Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete with Design Applications, PCA, EB702, 2002
• Tilt-Up Load-Bearing Walls, PCA, EB074, 1994
• Tilt-Up Concrete Buildings, PCA, PA079, 1989
• Concrete Masonry Handbook, PCA, EB008, 1991
• Concrete Floor Systems—Guide to Estimating and Economizing, PCA, SP041, 1991
• Building Movements and Joints, PCA, EB086, 1982
• Concrete Floors on Ground, PCA, EB075, 2001
• Slab Thickness Design for Industrial Concrete Floors on Grade, PCA, IS195, 1996
• Finishing Concrete Slabs with Color and Texture, PCA, PA124, 1991
• Structural Design of Roller-Compacted Concrete for Industrial Pavements, PCA, IS233, 1987
• Solidification and Stabilization of Waste Using Portland Cement, PCA, EB071, 1998
• Solidification/Stabilization of Contaminated Soil, PCA, SR341, 1994
• Concrete Slab Track for LRT Systems, PCA, Uncoded, 1996
• Concrete Pavement for Trucking Facilities, American Concrete Pavement Association (ACPA), Skokie, IL, IS416P, 1996
• Fast-Track Concrete Pavements, ACPA, TB004P, 1994
• Guidelines for Concrete Overlays of Existing Asphalt Pavements (Whitetopping), ACPA, TB009P, 1991
• Whitetopping—State of the Practice, ACPA, EB210P, 1997
• Guide for Concrete Floor & Slab Construction, Reported by ACI Committee 302, American Concrete Institute, Detroit, MI, 302.1R-89, 1989
• Guide for Design and Construction of Concrete Parking Lots, Reported by ACI Committee 330, American Concrete Institute, 330R-92, 1992
• Guide for the Design of Durable Parking Structures, Reported by ACI Committee 362, American Concrete Institute, 362.1R-94, 1994
• Construction of Continuously Reinforced Concrete Pavements, Concrete Reinforcing Steel Institute, Schaumburg, IL, 3CPV.
• PCI Design Handbook, Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute, Chicago, IL, MNL-120-92, 1992