WSP USA, formerly WSP, Parsons Brinckerhoff and Parsons Brinckerhoff, is a multinational engineering and design firm with approximately 14,000 employees. WSP stands for Williams Sale Partnership. The firm operates in the fields of strategic consulting, planning, engineering, construction management, energy, infrastructure and community planning. In 2013, the company was named the tenth largest U.S.-based engineering/design firm by ''Engineering News Record''. In 2020, it was ranked #7 of the Top 500 Design Firms and #2 of the Top 100 Pure Designers by the same magazine. On October 31, 2014, Parsons Brinckerhoff became a wholly owned independent subsidiary of WSP Global, a Canadian-based professional services firm. Parsons Brinckerhoff was renamed to WSP, Parsons Brinckerhoff, then to WSP USA in 2017. Together with WSP Global, WSP USA is one of the largest professional services firms in the world, with approximately 31,500 employees in 500 offices serving 39 countries.

History

Founded in 1885 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

by civil engineer William Barclay Parsons, among Parsons Brinckerhoff's earliest projects was the original IRT line of the New York City Subway, designed by Parsons Brinckerhoff and opened in 1904. Parsons Brinckerhoff also designed the

Cape Cod Canal The Cape Cod Canal is an artificial waterway in the U.S. state of Massachusetts connecting Cape Cod Bay in the north to Buzzards Bay in the south, and is part of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. The approximately canal traverses the neck ...

, which opened in 1914 and charted the course of a railway in China from Hankow (Wuhan) to Canton (Guangzhou), a line that is also still in use today. In 1906, Henry M. Brinckerhoff, a highway engineer, brought his expertise in electric railways to the firm. He is known for his co-invention of the third rail. The firm has worked on some of the most notable infrastructure projects of the 20th century, including: the

Detroit–Windsor Tunnel The Detroit–Windsor tunnel (french: tunnel de Détroit-Windsor), also known as the Detroit–Canada tunnel, is an international highway tunnel connecting the cities of Detroit, Michigan, United States and Windsor, Ontario, Canada. It ...

(1930); the

Scheldt The Scheldt (french: Escaut ; nl, Schelde ) is a river that flows through northern France, western Belgium, and the southwestern part of the Netherlands, with its mouth at the North Sea. Its name is derived from an adjective corresponding to ...

Tunnel in

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

, Belgium (1933); The Buzzards Bay Railroad Bridge on Cape Cod, Massachusetts (1935); The 1939 World's Fair in New York City; the

Garden State Parkway The Garden State Parkway (GSP) is a controlled-access toll road that stretches the north–south length of eastern New Jersey from the state's southernmost tip near Cape May to the New York state line at Montvale. Its name refers to New Jerse ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...

(1957); the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel in Virginia (1957); the Pell Bridge in

Newport, Rhode Island Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and northeast of New Yor ...

(1969); the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (United States) (1980); the

I-95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from US Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the Canadia ...

/ Fort McHenry Tunnel (1980); the H-3 Highway in Oahu, Hawaii (1997); the Sabiya Power Station in Kuwait (2000) and the rapid transit systems of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

(1972);

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,7 ...

(1979);

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

(1987);

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the ...

(1996); and

Caracas Caracas (, ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in th ...

(1983). Parsons Brinckerhoff was acquired by

Balfour Beatty Balfour Beatty plc () is an international infrastructure group based in the United Kingdom with capabilities in construction services, support services and infrastructure investments. A constituent of the FTSE 250 Index, Balfour Beatty works acr ...

in October 2009 and operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of the

plc. In October 2010 Balfour Beatty acquired Halsall Associates, which became a subsidiary of Parsons Brinckerhoff and part of its Canadian operations.

Acquisition by WSP Global

On October 31, 2014 Balfour Beatty sold Parsons Brinckerhoff to WSP Global. In 2017 Parsons Brinckerhoff changed its name to WSP USA. On September 3, 2014, it was announced that WSP Global had made an offer to purchase Parsons Brinckerhoff from Balfour Beatty plc for US$1.24 billion. The transaction closed on October 31, 2014 and Parsons Brinckerhoff became a wholly owned subsidiary of WSP Global. On January 10, 2017, it was announced that the brand Parsons Brinckerhoff would be retired and combined into the parent company, WSP Global. WSP, Parsons Brinckerhoff is now called WSP USA. Following the acquisition of

Louis Berger Group Louis Berger (formerly known as Berger Group Holdings) is a full-service engineering, architecture, planning, environmental, program and construction management and economic development firm based in Morristown, New Jersey. Founded in 1953 in H ...

by WSP Global in 2018 for $400 million, the operations of Louis Berger Group in the United States were merged with WSP USA's. WSP USA acquired two US-based environmental consulting firms over the next two years: Ecology & Environment (E & E) in 2019, and LT Environmental in 2020.

Current projects

The firm is involved in

Long Island Rail Road The Long Island Rail Road , often abbreviated as the LIRR, is a commuter rail system in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County on Long Island. With an average week ...

East Side Access East Side Access (ESA) is a public works project in New York City that extended the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) from its Main Line in Queens into a new station under Grand Central Terminal on Manhattan's East Side. A project of the Metropo ...

Grand Central Terminal Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Grand Central is the southern terminus ...

, with a planned opening of December 2022. It is also involved with the redevelopment of

LaGuardia Airport LaGuardia Airport is a civil airport in East Elmhurst, Queens, New York City. Covering , the facility was established in 1929 and began operating as a public airport in 1939. It is named after former New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia ...

in New York City, announced in 2015, with an expected completion date of 2022. In 2018, it was selected as the lead firm for the

Charlotte Douglas International Airport Charlotte Douglas International Airport (IATA: CLT, ICAO: KCLT, FAA LID: CLT), typically referred to as Charlotte Douglas, Douglas Airport, or simply CLT, is an international airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, located roughly six miles we ...

Airfield Expansion, with a targeted completion of 2022. It is working on the new Dallas Fort Worth International Airport Southwest End-Around Taxiway, with an expected completion date of 2021. In 2018, it started working on a master plan update for San Antonio International Airport.

Controversies

Parsons Brinckerhoff partnered with rival engineering firm

Bechtel Bechtel Corporation () is an American engineering, procurement, construction, and project management company founded in San Francisco, California, and headquartered in Reston, Virginia. , the '' Engineering News-Record'' ranked Bechtel as the se ...

to build the troubled

Big Dig The Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T Project), commonly known as the Big Dig, was a megaproject in Boston that rerouted the Central Artery of Interstate 93 (I-93), the chief highway through the heart of the city, into the 1.5-mile (2.4&n ...

in Boston, Massachusetts. The Big Dig, or Central Artery/Tunnel project as it was officially known, was intended to replace an elevated Interstate freeway and connecting roads with a tunnel system underneath Boston. The project was beset with bad engineering, shoddy workmanship, and the death of an automobile passenger as a poor ceiling design caused a tunnel roof section to collapse on a car in the tunnel, crushing the victim. The Big Dig was years over schedule and engineering costs to several times of Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff's original estimates, from $8 Billion to in excess of $24 Billion. Due to the poor construction, it has been estimated that the Big Dig's life span will be far short of the original specification that taxpayers paid for. The tunnels still have "thousands of leaks" and substandard materials. Subsequent to the fatal tunnel ceiling collapse, light fixtures have been found to have been incorrectly installed and corroding, posing a risk of failure and falling to the tunnel roadway. Parsons Brinckerhoff was also the lead engineering firm to build the

Silver Spring, Maryland Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C. Although officially unincorporated, in practice it is an edge city, with a population of 81,015 at the 2020 ce ...

transportation center. Despite a ballooning budget and a project that has run far behind schedule, the transit center was poorly constructed and has not become operational due to poor design and workmanship. In April 2014, ''The Washington Post'' published an exposé on Parsons Brinckerhoff's troubled transit center, reporting that an independent report has found that the public would be at risk due to falling concrete and needs a significant redesign and upgrades. Parsons Brinckerhoff was part of a lawsuit for Lane Cove Tunnel, Sydney, Australia.Supreme Court New South Wales Court Ref No 2009/290489 The claim by AMP Capital Investors for Australian $144 million was settled in September 2014. The basis of the claim was 'Misleading and defective conduct' but the settlement is on confidential terms with no admission of liability.

References

External links

* {{Authority control American companies established in 1885 Engineering consulting firms Construction and civil engineering companies of the United States Consulting firms of the United States Consulting firms established in 1885 1885 establishments in New York (state)