America Actually Built Something On Time and On Budget - #206

The World's Best Construction Podcast

The episode explores major infrastructure successes and controversial urban developments, primarily focusing on the replacement of New York'

Key takeaways

• The Park Avenue Viaduct replacement project was completed $100 million under budget and four years ahead of schedule.
• Halmar utilized an innovative gantry system to allow for rapid segment replacement during weekend windows.

Main topics

• New York Infrastructure
• Urban Greenery and Pedestrianization

Notable quotes

It's not a building. It's an experience.

Conclusion

The episode highlights how the marriage of skilled labor and advanced

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) you Speaker 2 (0:07) This is where they are building the largest nuclear fusion reactor in the world. A Speaker 1 (0:13) friend of mine told me I had to check out this pool. America on Main Street and at the dinner table is talking about infrastructure when 20 years ago they didn't even know what that meant. Speaker 2 (0:23) Today, those towers are an astounding display of wealth, prestige and engineering. It's Speaker 4 (0:29) impacting everyday Americans. Speaker 1 (0:31) I am against the train. The way it's being done right now. Your Speaker 4 (0:35) city housing is a Speaker 3 (0:37) scam. It is a scam, scam, scam, scam, Speaker 4 (0:40) scam. The Shard in central London is being officially opened today and at 310 metres tall, it's Europe's newest and tallest skyscraper. Speaker 2 (0:49) Hello, I'm Fred Mills. And this is the world's best construction podcast by the B1M. Speaker 2 (1:00) Hello and welcome to our latest episode of the World's Best Construction Podcast. Today's episode is sponsored by Procore. I'm your host Fred, talking to you from London. Joining me on the line from just across London is Mr. Luke Bly and then dialing in all the way from Sydney, Australia is Mr. Liam Marsh. Guys, it's been a very busy old time at the B1M. There's been hit videos dropping, I've been on international trips, we've been filming in amazing places, there's been banging events. Ah, it's all going on there. The banging event Speaker 3 (1:29) in question was brilliant. Brilliant. Eight Bishops Gate. What was the actual name of the event again? Inside the Speaker 2 (1:37) world's biggest mega builds brought to you by the B1M in partnership with Procore. What Speaker 3 (1:41) great Speaker 2 (1:42) morning that was. The venue, the view, the speakers. I did these interviews with, I said, the guy who's actually building Jeddah Tower with a Jeddah Tower model in the room, which was just incredible. the lady behind Norway's, well, the world's longest and deepest subsea road tunnel being built in Norway, and also the VP of capital delivery for Amtrak, who's managing hundreds of projects across the northeast of the US. It was a good day, right? Speaker 3 (2:09) Incredible. Incredible. I did notice, though, at the end of the day, the gentleman there from Jeddah Tower did steal about half an hour after the event had finished. still had a crowd of construction nerds around him asking him questions. It was brilliant. Almost as big as the Speaker 2 (2:29) crowd queuing up to get their books signed by me, mate. That's not to suggest there were two celebrities in the room here. There's only one Taylor Swift present. Speaker 3 (2:38) Oh, I don't know about that, mate. You Speaker 4 (2:41) missed Speaker 3 (2:41) a good one, Liam. Speaker 4 (2:42) You missed a good one, mate. Yeah, it sounded really good, didn't it? I'm looking forward to hearing more about Jitter Tower. in the coming months on the channel. Speaker 2 (2:52) Yeah, it's good. We've got some good stuff coming up on that Speaker 4 (2:54) on Speaker 2 (2:54) the old B1M pretty soon. Did Speaker 3 (2:57) you like Speaker 2 (2:57) your goodie bag, Luke? Oh, I loved Speaker 3 (3:00) it, mate. Another cheeky copy of the book. What's not to love? The Lego shirt as well. Speaker 4 (3:05) Did you give out copies of the book again? Speaker 3 (3:07) Yes, mate. Exclusive copies of the book. Speaker 2 (3:09) I'll give them away, mate. Give them away for free now. It's such is the demand for a Sunday Times bestseller that we've had to give more out. Also, it was the first physical rollout of the Make Construction Famous branding. We had it on the windows, we Speaker 3 (3:25) had Speaker 2 (3:25) tote bags. And I have to say, the reaction took me aback. I didn't think it was going to connect with people that strongly. And it really did resonate. I had people quoting it back to me, people asking questions about it, people feeding into their answers and their thought processes in the Q &A. It was very cool, really, really cool to see that take off and have such an impact. So, yeah, excited to see. where that goes in the coming months. Speaker 4 (3:50) Definitely keen to get some new merch while I'm in town too. Mate, we'll sort you out with some merch. Don't you worry. For those Speaker 2 (3:57) of you who don't have a direct line to me and basically bug me for free stuff like Liam does, even though he works for me, there is a store, the B1M store, link below. You can go and get all your mate construction famous merch, whatever you want within reason is down there. So go and check it out. Also, not only that. I left that event, flew straight to Copenhagen for a speaking event, which was very good, back again within 24 hours, and then popped over to Barcelona to film inside the Sagrada Familia. I've talked about this for years. I've talked about it on this podcast. It's a building that we have wanted to get access to, but we've always been sort of denied access. It happened. We got there. We got inside. I was walking through the Sagrada Familia early morning. before it opened with permission of all the great and the good who run that building Speaker 2 (4:51) Astonishing. I was in that space on my own before anyone else, before any of Speaker 3 (4:55) the Speaker 2 (4:55) crowds. And the footage we got was extraordinary. Absolutely extraordinary. Speaker 3 (5:01) Really? I mean, even your Instagram stories, mate, were amazing. That's kind of what I was looking forward to catching up with you the most, actually, on this episode. And I know we're saving a lot of the details for the video that's coming up on it. I it doesn't actually look real it looks like something that I hate to even use this expression because I don't inherently agree with it but my initial thought was that it looks like AI it doesn't even look real some of this stuff right and yeah and I mean that in the best way possible not like AI slob stuff but It looked amazing, Fred. It didn't look real. Honestly, Speaker 2 (5:45) it was exhausting in a way because everywhere you looked, there was something fascinating or jaw-dropping to see. The challenge we've got now is how do we convey that in a YouTube video in a succinct way for people? Do Speaker 3 (5:57) it justice. Speaker 2 (5:58) Yeah, we had access to all areas. We were, as I said, inside the nave, up on all the balconies, up on the roof, the construction deck where they were lifting materials, inside the top of the nave at the base of the new Tower of Jesus Christ. They put up in the middle. We went down to the basement, into the model workshop down there. It was jaw-dropping. I have to say, I'd never actually been in the Sagrada Familia. Speaker 3 (6:23) I walked in the first time the Speaker 2 (6:25) cameras were rolling. I walked in. it's not a building. It's an experience. Honestly, you go in there and you just feel like you've been transported into this other world. I think if Gaudi's goal was to make you feel like you somehow left earth behind and move close to heaven, then it is definitely mission accomplished. It was the most astonishing thing I've ever seen. Yeah. Speaker 3 (6:45) I'm buzzing for that. Have we got a, um, because I know listeners will want to know. Yeah. Have you got a guesstimation of release? Is it before the end of the year? Oh, Speaker 2 (6:57) yeah, mid-October. We're looking at mid-October. Are you joking? Speaker 3 (7:01) I Speaker 2 (7:01) wish I was joking. It's quite pacey. There's quite a lot of work going on behind the scenes. That is pacey. Speaker 4 (7:09) Much Speaker 2 (7:10) to my video team's delight, but we are getting there. It's going to be out. It's going to be good. I'm not going to give an exact date because I want to put the right video out when it's ready, not be held Speaker 4 (7:20) to a date. Sorry, people. But yeah. Speaker 2 (7:23) Yeah. No. Peace. I also now really want the Lego set. I kind of made my peace with the Lego set because it's 650 quid. It's coming out in November. All kinds of influencers have been sent it to build in advance and share videos up on social media. So Lego group, if you're listening, the world's biggest construction influencer right here. I think someone on our team has already reached out to the mate. Really? Speaker 3 (7:45) There Speaker 2 (7:46) you go. Well, hopefully it's on the way soon. Otherwise, leaving the Sagrada Familia behind, we've got a little banger of an episode coming up today. Very, very US focused. First of all, we're talking about the replacement of New York's Park Avenue Viaduct, a video that came out on the B1M yesterday. This is the production I filmed in New York at the end of July. Very excited for that conversation. We're going to be joined by Andy Ramson, who is Field Chief Operating Officer at Procore for that conversation. And then also in the news, we're staying in New York, talking about the updated plans for New York's Park Avenue, and then heading over to Vegas, where a boring company station has been planned for the Allegiant Stadium. As ever, this whole episode is going to be sprinkled with plenty of comedy, digressions, and some of your messages and comments from the past week. Let's do it. Let's get cracking. Let's go. Speaker 2 (8:43) So first of this week, we are heading over to New York where we're talking about our new video all about the replacement of New York's Park Avenue Viaduct, which came out on the B1M yesterday and is already going down an absolute storm. Now for this segment, we're joined by a special guest from our sponsor for today, Procore. Andy Rampton, who is a Fields Chief Operating Officer, is joining us from Sydney. How are you doing, Andy? Speaker 1 (9:06) I'm very well, thank you. Lovely to be here. Thank you for the invitation. Speaker 2 (9:10) Good to have you. Good to have you be part of it. Now, this video, as I said, came at us on the B1M. This charted my journey to New York to go and check out the Park Avenue Viaduct upgrade back at the end of July 2026. Astonishingly hot period in New York. I don't know why we went over to New York in the middle of a heat wave with high humidity, but there I was with all my PPE on. Off for a Saturday morning site visit, which is a rare thing for us. But basically, the project that's happening here can only really happen at the weekends. So we get up early in the financial district. We hop on the subway. The funniest thing, because we're on the subway and going through kind of Grand Central Station at like four or five in the morning, the only thing really around are rats. But then members of the New York public in their clothes from last night going home as we're going out. for the day. It's a very, very kind of sketchy group of people, myself included. On the subway trains. Yeah, that time in the morning, yeah. So there we are. We go up to Harlem, of all places, which is not kind of on everyone's bucket list for New York, but it's certainly a bit of an experience. But the reason I went up there is because running out of Grand Central Station, up the kind of northbound route of Manhattan Island, And then over into Bronx and up into New York State is the Metro North Railroad, which is one of the most important rail lines in North America. It brings commuters in from right across New York State down into Grand Central into Manhattan. Literally hundreds of thousands of commuters use this every day. And yet they've been carried over a structure that's now more than 130 years old, which is the Park Avenue Viaduct. Now the job of that viaduct... is to basically lift passengers up over the top of Park Avenue across four tracks. And that viaduct runs right from 97th Street all the way up to where Manhattan Island ends and where it meets the Harlem River. After that, trains carry on. So that whole structure is about a mile long. After that, trains pass onto the Harlem River lift bridge and then go over into the Bronx. goes without saying that a 130 year old structure that's still carrying hundreds of thousands of commuters every day into what is America if not the world's biggest most important financial hub is not a good thing is a single point of failure on a very critical route so the MTA is now replacing the whole thing and I really do mean the whole thing from the foundations the structure the tracks the power lines the communications the signaling systems everything is being stripped out and replaced while keeping this critically important rail line open so to kind of minimize inconvenience to passengers as i said all the work takes place at the weekend they only do two tracks at a time so there is a full weekend service of some 400 trains a day continuing while this work is happening and i cannot tell you the experience literally we we kind of journeyed through a very sleepy new york the city that never sleeps actually quite sleepy on that saturday morning And then you get into kind of sleepy Harlem. It's quiet. And then you arrive at this construction site and it is a hive of activity. The choreography, it's like a military operation. I've never seen anything like it. There were segments being pre-cut, sliced, and then quickly lifted out by these huge gantries, these huge kind of yellow gantries you'll see in the video. A link to the video, guys, is down in the podcast notes there. But these huge gantries lifting out these segments onto waiting trucks, the trucks pull them away, new segments craned in, positioned into place. All of that is a matter of minutes. And everywhere you look, there's a hive of activity. When I got to the site, this guy said to me, he goes, yeah, they've been hauling ass this morning. That's the most American phrase you could ever imagine. But he's right. They were going really quickly. And it's just... It was a real sight to behold. I've been on many construction sites. I've seen some incredible feats of engineering and construction, but often the default is to do things carefully with preparation. I'm not saying that's not the case here, but you really got the sense of speed and pace. We had moments to cross the road where the trucks were coming in and out to get to our next filming spot because the trucks were queued up down the street ready to come in. Speaker 2 (13:39) it speaks to the best of construction. Andy, what was your impression? Obviously, you see construction products and stories around the world. When you watched this video, what was your first impression of this team? Speaker 1 (13:48) I think, first of all, the fact that the original viaduct has lasted 130 years, what a testament to engineering and construction that is. So, first of all, applaud it to the Victorian guys that created that. Speaker 2 (14:04) I think Speaker 1 (14:04) you hit the nail on the head. that video shows a project that is run with absolute precision. And that's not really a word we use in construction too often. You also mentioned something else there. As you were walking towards the site, the site almost disappears out of nowhere. Speaker 3 (14:26) And Speaker 1 (14:27) again, I think that's, you know, we're used to construction sites sprawling. You know, they're usually large land masses. They have... trucks coming in and out. You can usually tell a construction site is around long before you actually get to the gate and yet this one was very compact. Everybody, every piece of machinery was in the exact place it needed to be and they had the deliveries. I mean we'll probably talk about the trucks. I think they talked about planning down to 10 minute intervals. They've got trucks coming in and out all of the