Owners of transportation infrastructure in the United States find themselves in a precarious position. Aging infrastructure requires rehabilitation or replacement. Increasing user demand for existing infrastructure reduces down-time availability for such activities, while resources are static or declining In general, initial construction costs for ABC continue to be significantly higher than for conventional construction. Meeting these conflicting demands has been difficult for highway agencies. One of the ways in which agencies are coping with this problem is by sacrificing one of the demands. When user inconvenience would be intolerable, the higher cost of accelerated construction is justified. On the other hand, when user inconvenience is acceptable, conventional construction is selected. In fact, both of these solutions are less than desirable. NYSDOT is fully committed to developing solutions to this problem. Probably the most desirable one is to develop methods of accelerated construction with little or no cost premium. A reduction in cost would make it even more attractive.
Most of the bridge-related construction in New York State falls into three categories