$2.46 billion

Sector: Transportation

Location: About 37 kilometres from Vancouver to Langley, British Columbia

Key Players: Peter Kiewit & Sons with Flatiron (design-build contractor); H5M – a joint venture of Hatch Mott MacDonald, TY Lin International, and MMM Group (prime design consultants); Kiewit Flatiron General Partnership (constructor)

Owner: Province of British Columbia (Transportation Investment Corporation)

Financing: Public – The provincial government entered into a fixed-price design-build contract with Peter Kiewit Sons Co. and Flatiron Constructors Canada Limited. The estimated cost of the PMH1 was $1.6 billion in our 2009 publication, but Hatch Mott MacDonald has confirmed that the cost is now $2.46 billion.

Status: Scheduled for completion in 2013.

Project Details: Initiated in 2007 as part of the Ministry of Transportation’s Gateway Program, the PMH1—one of the largest transportation network projects currently underway in North America—has had some hiccups getting started. But a contract signed with Kiewit-Flatiron in March 2009 ensures that cost overruns or construction delays are the responsibility of the contractor, not the Province. All costs will be recovered by electronic tolls, which would have been in place even if the project had gone ahead as a public-private partnership (P3) as originally planned. The project involves widening 37 kilometres of highway, including twinning/replacement of the major Port Mann Bridge crossing of the Fraser River.