The rehabilitation of Taxiway WB at George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) began with demolition work by prime contractor Flatiron in early February. The $58.9 million Houston Airports (HAS) project further ensures the efficiency and value of the IAH taxiway, extending its useful lifespan by a minimum of 20 years and greatly increasing safety.

Chad McGhee, HAS Construction Manager, discussed the project and its importance to Houston Airports as it moves toward a 5-star future. The project is expected to take just under 24 months to complete, with a projected completion date of January 2022. McGhee said the work requires considerable coordination because of its impact to cargo carriers, tenants and others.

“The work has been carefully phased, with some phases of work being performed exclusively at night and other phases during the day since the entire taxiway cannot be shut down during construction,” McGhee said. “As always,” McGhee said, “we’ll seek to minimize operational impacts during construction.”

This is the second of two projects undertaken in conjunction with Flatiron, the first being the recent rehabilitation of Taxiway WA, which reopened in September 2019 after a lengthy closure.

IAH served almost 45.3 million passengers in 2019, a 3.3% increase from 2018. Chief Infrastructure Officer Bob Barker maintains that enhancing airport infrastructure is critical to those increasing numbers through great customer service. “Houston Airports is actively working to ensure that our facilities not only meet but exceed demands for increased capacity and optimum efficiency,” Barker said.

A partial listing of scope elements for the construction phase of Taxiway WB includes:

• full-depth reconstruction of Taxiway WB, including associated pavements to facilitate a fully functioning taxiway system
• construction of stormwater underdrains under Taxiway WB
• furnishing and installing new LED centerline lights

McGhee emphasized the scope of the endeavor, which includes significant quantities such as 111,500 square yards of total concrete paving, 87,500 square feet of phased airfield paving markings, 118,00 square yards of bituminous concrete pavement section demolition, and 15,450 tons of bituminous surface course.

Ultimate benefits will include:

• Upgraded aircraft guidance lighting and signage
• New markings which will improve movement of pilots – better visibility to the airfield
• The intersections and the paving will be vastly improved
• Reduced maintenance costs which means minimal impact to their operations
• Redundant taxiways to the south end of the west complex
• Will allow the movement of some of the larger aircraft to the north end because of the changing of some of the radiuses and associated happenings

 “Right now, “McGhee said, “the team is focused on demolition – we must demolish up to three separate layers of pavement, all the way down through the subgrade. We are demolishing roughly 45 inches of total thickness and we will build it back to the HAS current standards.”

He said that the next steps will be to stabilize the subgrade, then return with embankment fill and build it back up to the paving.

McGhee works alongside HAS Construction Manager Johnathan Limb, and he also cited Robert Vinson, Resident Engineer, and Jeff Cruser, Airfield Operations Construction Coordinator, as key individuals for the Taxiway WB project. “Close coordination is always important,” McGhee said, “as we are also about to undertake the Sanitary Sewer Rehabilitation Project, which will certainly overlap with this taxiway rehabilitation.”

Improving airfield conditions are critical and go together with improving the customer experience, McGhee said. “Houston Airports has more than $1 billion of airside civil work - either in planning, design, or under construction - and that just strongly illustrates its ongoing commitment to safety, to service, and to state-of-the-art infrastructure.”