By MARK R. MADLER Staff Reporter The 14-month project to reconstruct Taxiway B at Van Nuys Airport has been completed, Los Angeles World Airports announced this month. The $29.7 million project extends the taxiway’s pavement life by more than 20 years, increases safety and meets new Federal Aviation Administration design standards. Justin Erbacci, interim chief executive of Los Angeles World Airports, said the city agency was committed to delivering a gold standard in safety, operations and facilities at Van Nuys and the taxiway reconstruction project is part of that. “I want to thank our project team, who worked diligently with tenants and the FAA to coordinate project design, phasing and construction in a manner that would minimize operational impacts,” Erbacci said in a statement. The Taxiway B Rehabilitation Project was managed by LAWA’s internal Planning and Development Group with HNTB Corp. as the engineer of record and Griffith Co. as the general contractor. Reconstruction of the 8,800-foot taxiway was accomplished in nine phases and included full-depth asphalt pavement reconstruction, including taxiway shoulder construction, new markings, installation of LED centerline and edge lights, upgraded signage, new jet blast resistant fencing, and grading and drainage improvements, the airport agency said. Major challenges faced by the project team included maintaining access for airport tenants during construction, as well as scheduling the runway shortening outside of hot summer and wet winter weather months, the agency added. During the project, Runway 16R/34, was shortened for a brief period, but this was scheduled during cooler spring months which mitigated the impacts to the airport users. Closing the 4,000-foot Runway 16L/34R and utilizing it as a temporary taxiway during construction also enabled work to progress more rapidly and decreased aircraft wait and taxi times. The rehab is the first of two federally funded projects to reconstruct the main north-south taxiways at Van Nuys over three years. Later this month, work will commence on a $35.4 million, 16-month project to rehabilitate Taxiway A, located on the west side of the runways. Overall, the work is needed to rehabilitate taxiway pavements that have deteriorated over time and improve taxiway intersections and shoulder pavement to meet current FAA standards. The FAA Airport Improvement Program is funding 90 percent of the construction cost for both projects.Â
