Tlicho All-Season Road
Whati, Northwest Territories
Kiewit is the design-builder, as well as Project Concessionaire, on the TASR project, which involves replacing a winter-only ice road with an all-season gravel road that will connect the town of Whati to the Yellowknife Highway. This project involves four bridges, 12 other water crossing structures, a 97 km gravel highway, and geotechnical, drainage, traffic management, and wildlife management tasks during construction and operations. Construction is expected to take nearly three years, followed by a 25-year operations period.
The TASR project involves the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT), the Tłı̨chǫ Government (local First Nation), Kiewit (DB contractor) and North Star Infrastructure (Project Co) where the delivery model is Design, Build, Finance, Operate and Maintain (DBFOM). The foremost purpose of the project is to improve quality of life, community access and economic development for the Tłı̨chǫ citizens, residing in the Tłı̨chǫ Lands, by improving the mobility of the Tłı̨chǫ citizens to and from Whatì.
The TASR project includes four design-build bridges – the most relevant being the La Martre bridge located at KM 85. This 58-m-long, single-span, steel girder bridge crosses the La Martre river, an environmentally sensitive river with northern pike, lake trout, and arctic grayling. The river is 27 m wide and three to four metres deep in the vicinity of the bridge, surrounded by marshy terrain. The bridge is founded on 16-ea 356mm diameter steel pipe piles, with four 2.4 m tall steel girders. The bridge includes an MSE abutment, with heavy rock rip rap slope protection.
Project Award:
- 2019 Gold Medal Award for Project Development by the Canadian Council for Public Private Partnerships