North Texas Tollway Authority Construction Engineering Consultant

The North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA) is a crucial component of the North Texas transportation system, maintaining eight toll roads that cover more than 980 miles throughout the Dallas‐Fort Worth metroplex. To keep pace with the growing regional transportation demands, NTTA is expanding their North Texas toll road system as well as implementing improved technologies.

For a four‐year period under a $13 million contract, Lochner has been hired to act as the tollway’s construction engineering consultant. Lochner’s services include project management; contract/administrative support; change order review; plan, specification, and estimate (PS&E) review; environmental compliance oversight; and construction oversight for numerous construction projects throughout the metroplex.

In addition to these services, a major component of work performed by Lochner will be visual quality and landscape support. The Lochner team is working with NTTA to provide toll road users a uniformed and quality experience based on NTTA’s branding goals. To achieve this, Lochner is involved early in the concrete design process to verify the visual quality meets NTTA’s Special Specification Item 850 requirement, “natural grey or integrally colored concrete.” Lochner is enforcing a consistent color delivery of visual concrete by using custom‐designed processes to impose tight material control on rock and binder (cement and fly ash). Together, NTTA and Lochner will review and approve the contractor’s required concrete mock‐ups before mass production.

During the course of the contract, the Lochner team is providing staff to reside at NTTA’s headquarters in Plano, Texas. The team consists of auditors, record keepers, electronic document management system (EDMS) trainers, construction inspectors, and change order review specialists. Additionally, Lochner is working with several DBE firms, far exceeding the NTTA’s contract goal of 30 percent.