Chevron Pipe Line Company - Silicon Valley Rapid Transit Utility Relocation Project

EDM Services is providing engineering and design services for the Silicon Valley Rapid Transit (SVRT) Utility Relocation Project (Project) on behalf of Chevron Pipe Line Company. The Project is being constructed within the cities of Milpitas and Fremont, in Santa Clara and Alameda Counties. Other entities involved in this project include the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR), and the California Department of Transportation (CALTRANS). The affected utility companies include Chevron, Kinder Morgan, MCI, Level 3, Sprint, and Verizon.

The overall objective is to provide an unobstructed 40-foot wide corridor for the proposed BART rail system extension by removing and relocating all conflicting utilities within the rail corridor. In addition, all at-grade road crossings are being eliminated by reconstructing the roadways to pass underneath the rail lines.

This pipeline relocation project poses a number of unique construction challenges:

• The alignment is within a densely populated portion of the San Francisco Bay Area. As a result, the construction corridor is essentially confined to the available area within the rail corridor. In some cases, the work area for fabricating the pipe string and placing the HDD equipment is only 20-feet wide.
• The construction corridor is parallel with and adjacent to active UPRR tracks. In some locations, the tracks are located within the construction work area, requiring close coordination with rail operations.
• Many of the trench areas are within the zone of influence from the rail lines. As a result, they have significant surcharge loads, requiring specialized shoring designs to protect construction personnel.
• The rail corridor is very congested, requiring the replacement line to be installed in essentially the same location as the existing pipeline, which will remain active during construction in order to avoid local gasoline shortages. This requires extraordinary safety measures to protect the active line in place.

The project involves relocating the majority of Chevron’s 8-inch refined petroleum products pipeline along a 5.2 mile segment. This work includes seven horizontal directional drilled (HDD) crossings within the VTA utility corridor. The HDD crossings range in length from 600-feet to over one mile.

The project is being managed by Chevron’s Project Manager, Mr. Mark Teissere, who is being assisted by Don Caswell, Construction Manager. The construction contractor is ARB, Inc., of Lake Forest, California.

Project Photos