Robert Harris, construction manager for Louisville’s $1.2-billion Downtown Crossing, downplays his role in coordinating a team of state engineers and design-build team members on Kentucky’s largest-ever project, a 2,100-ft-long, three-tower cable-stayed bridge connecting downtown Louisville to points north.
“At the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, we’ve always been a team, usually just smaller and more self-contained,” he says. “I try to be an impartial referee here. Sometimes I tell the resident engineers, ‘Maybe the contractor is on the right track.’ Everybody has a say.”
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| Robert G.Harris Jr. |
KYTC部门工程师耶利米·利特尔顿（Jeremiah Littleton）对哈里斯（Harris）的角色更直言不讳。“罗布（Rob）的愿景使人栩栩如生，是一支由内部的政府雇员组成的团队，由工程师和检查员大军的支持，”这位热情洋溢的工程师说。“罗布以前曾与我们所有人合作过。”
Littleton adds, “He could see our combined strengths vastly covering our many weaknesses. Battle-tested, he knew what it would take to get [done] the biggest project we have ever had—and done right. He picked us and turned us into a family. Throughout the short life of this project, we have been through deaths, births, family struggles and mental breakdowns. Rob is always there to cover for us, kick us in the junk, pat us on the back, dust us off, defend us or just be there as we cry on his shoulder. You wouldn’t get the dedication to a successful project without a boss like that.”
A lifelong employee of the KYTC, Harris “retired” in 2007 to work for the consultant team that was working on the Ohio River Bridges project, which includes the Louisville crossing and an East End section in Indiana, when it was still design-bid-build, he says.
When it looked like the project was doomed, he returned to the KYTC. “It was a $4.1-billion project.Nobody was going to find that kind of money. It was starting to die a slow death,” he says.
但是，这两个州聚在一起。印第安纳州与东区过境点建立了公私合作伙伴关系，肯塔基州选择了设计建造路线。
哈里斯并没有退休，而是回到了该项目。这座新桥梁已完成75％，提前按计划完成，车道开放，交通开放，而拆除拆除将在旧的肯尼迪桥梁上开始。
