...rubble into aggregate and build precasting yards. “We’re fortunate: from soup to nuts, [everything is] on site,” Pasley says.

The precast concrete guideway rises as high as 50 ft, snaking in and out of stations added to each terminal on the active airfield. Walkways, jet bridges and fuel pits were relocated. Precast post-tensioned columns, cast off site, were erected in six segments each.

NIGHT WORK Guildeway is erected near active taxiways, requiring frequent gate closure.

This required a total of 30,000 night closures of airplane gates, says Andrew Bell, DFW capital program managing executive. Steel bands at their bases help withstand bumping by aircraft vehicles. To make room for the guideway, an old control tower had to be removed. It was replaced by a new 80-ft control tower built in nine months that cantilevers over the tracks and ties into a new station.

Eight four-level stations, designed by Houston-based Kellogg Brown & Root, are integrated into airport terminals. Passengers will access 190-ft-long, 30-ft-wide platforms via escalators and elevators from the gates below. In an energy-efficient touch, windows are designed to absorb heat.

A new $20-million, 100,000-sq-ft maintenance building is fed by a 1-mile spur track. Montreal-based Bombardier supplies the lightweight fiberglass rail cars and has a five-year operations and maintenance contract. In designing the facility layout, DFW officials studied San Francisco Airport’s BART project.

COMING TOGETHER Phillip/May's Johnson (right) and other small firms say they gained positive experience despite intial reservations.

The system will carry up to 5,000 passengers per hour, traveling from one end of the airport to the other in just 9 minutes. This is crucial since “70% of traffic are connecting passengers,” says DFW spokesman Steve Roth.

Keeping minority and DBE contractors working was challenging after work was scaled back after 9/11. Skylink’s utility contract survived when DFW convinced three local minority-owned contractors to team up, says Luis Spinola, president and CEO of Azteca Enterprises Inc.

None of the three local DBE firms—Azteca, Phillips/May Corp. and Meridian Commercial Inc.—were initially enthusiastic. But Bell secured a memo of understanding and they went to work. “There’s been no conflict,” says Gary Johnson, Phillips/May project manager. The experience pushed his firm to “a new level of working with others,” he says.

In the future, Skylink may expand to serve a consolidated car rental facility and...

(Photos courtesy of DFW)