Arup team wins Hay Award at AREMA conference
Written by Kyra Senese, Managing Editor
Representatives from Arup accept the 2018 Dr. William W. Hay Award at the 2018 AREMA Conference. | Photo: RT&S/Kyra Senese
The American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association (AREMA) presented the 2018 Dr. William W. Hay Award for Excellence to Arup on Sept. 17 for the consulting firm’s work on the Fulton Center project in New York, N.Y.
The $1.4 billion Fulton Center facility based in lower Manhattan was built with the involvement of 10 contractors, one design-build team and eight design-bid-builds on behalf of MTA Capital Construction / New York City Transit. An Arup representative explained that the Federal Transit Authority provided the majority of the funding needed for the project, while the state of New York provided the remaining funds.
The project replaced the former Fulton Center that was destroyed as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and is set to serve 300,000 passengers. The Arup architectural engineering design team provided the technical design for the project, the representatives said.
In a video presented by Arup after the team received the award, MTA’s Uday Durg notes the project made the Fulton Center Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant, whereas the former facility was difficult to navigate.
The key goals of the project also included decongesting the station by redesigning it in a way that made the flows of traffic more logical, removing obstacles to improve movement and train capacity, as well as adding access points and creating a hub from the surface that would be easily identifiable, MTA’s William Wheeler, director of Special Project Development and Planning, said in the video.
This year, AREMA celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Hay Award, said Michael Franke, who chairs the AREMA selection committee for the Hay Award. The 2018 contest saw seven entries that Franke said were judged on innovation, safety and service performance reliability.
Those who are awarded the Hay Award receive a special trophy to keep for one year, as well as a plaque that the group may keep permanently to celebrate their accomplishments.
The purpose of the award is to recognize outstanding achievement in railroad engineering and to honor the memory and accomplishments of one of the committee’s former members, William Walter Hay, Franke said. Hay’s son, Bill, was in attendance at the award ceremony and spoke about his father’s work and the importance of such projects today.
