Tlicho All-Season Road

Whati, Northwest Territories

Kiewit is the project developer, concessionaire, design-builder and operations and maintenance service provider on the TASR project. This project involved the replacement of a winter-only ice road with an all-season gravel road that connects the town of Whatì to Hwy 3 heading north to Yellowknife and south towards Fort Providence. The TASR included four bridges, 12 other water crossing structures, a 97 km gravel highway, and geotechnical, drainage, traffic management, and wildlife management tasks during construction and operations. Kiewit’s scope of work included managing the project through development and a successful financial close. Construction was completed on time, on budget, and the project’s 25-year operations and maintenance period is underway.

The TASR project involves the owner, Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT), Kiewit’s partner the Tłı̨chǫ Government (local First Nation), Kiewit (design-build contractor) and North Star Infrastructure (Kiewit-led project company which also serves as the operations and maintenance service provider).The foremost purpose of the project is to improve quality of life, community access and economic development for Tłı̨chǫ citizens residing in the Tłı̨chǫ Lands, by improving their mobility to and from Whatì. Since opening the road, the team operating and maintaining the project under the guidance of Kiewit has been comprised of local Tłı̨chǫ residents.

The TASR project includes the La Martre Bridge, located at KM 85. This 58-meter-long, single-span, steel girder bridge crosses the La Martre river, an environmentally sensitive river with northern pike, lake trout, and arctic grayling. The river is 27 meter wide and three to four meters deep in the vicinity of the bridge, surrounded by marshy terrain. The bridge is founded on 16-ea 356mm diameter driven steel pipe piles, with four 2.4 meter tall steel girders. The bridge includes an MSE abutment, with heavy rock rip rap slope protection.