WSP USA, formerly Parsons Brinckerhoff, is an American multinational engineering and design firm. The firm operates in the fields of strategic consulting, planning, engineering, construction management, energy, infrastructure and community planning. It is a subsidiary of

WSP Global WSP Global Inc. is a Canadian consulting firm working mostly in the built environment. It was created in 2012, following Montreal-based Genivar's takeover of British firm WSP Group plc. It is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. After the pu ...

. 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

, a Canadian-based professional services firm. Parsons Brinckerhoff was renamed to WSP, Parsons Brinckerhoff, then to WSP in 2017. Part of 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 (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

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, 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 region is an international transborder agglomeration named for the American city of Detroit, Michigan, the Canadian city of Windsor, Ontario, and the Detroit River, which separates them. The Detroit–Windsor area acts as a ...

(1930); the

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

Tunnel in

Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...

, 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 highway, controlled-access toll road that stretches the north–south length of eastern New Jersey from the state's southernmost tip near Cape May, New Jersey, Cape May north to the New York ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

(1957); the

Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel Hampton may refer to: Places Australia * Hampton bioregion, an IBRA biogeographic region in Western Australia * Hampton, New South Wales * Hampton, Queensland, a town in the Toowoomba Region * Hampton, Victoria ** Hampton railway station, Melbo ...

in Virginia (1957); the Pell Bridge in

Newport, Rhode Island Newport is a seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Rhode Island, United States. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and nort ...

(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 U.S. Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, north to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the ...

/ Fort McHenry Tunnel (1980); the U.S. 25E Cumberland Gap Tunnel at the Tennessee/Kentucky border, 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, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

(1972);

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

(1979);

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

(1987);

Taipei , nickname = The City of Azaleas , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Taiwan#Asia#Pacific Ocean#Earth , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country ...

(1996); and

Caracas Caracas ( , ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas (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 the northern p ...

(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, the company is active ac ...

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 of Parsons Brinckerhoff by WSP Global

On October 31, 2014, Balfour Beatty sold Parsons Brinckerhoff to

. In 2017 Parsons Brinckerhoff changed its name to WSP USA. On September 3, 2014, it was announced that

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. 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 ...

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. In 2021, WSP purchased Golder Associates, and in 2022 WSP acquired Wood PLC’s Environment & Infrastructure Solutions, Inc. business.

Current projects

The firm is involved in

Long Island Rail Road The Long Island Rail Road , or LIRR, is a Rail transport, railroad in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County, New York, Suffolk County on Long Islan ...

East Side Access East Side Access (ESA) is a public works project in New York City that extended the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) two miles from its Main Line (Long Island Rail Road), Main Line in Queens to the new Grand Central Madison station under Grand Cent ...

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

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

LaGuardia Airport LaGuardia Airport ( ) – colloquially known as LaGuardia or simply LGA – is a civil airport in East Elmhurst, Queens, East Elmhurst, Queens, New York City, situated on the North Shore (Long Island), northwestern shore of Long Island, bord ...

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 Airfield Expansion, with a targeted completion of 2022. It is working on the new

Dallas Fort Worth International Airport Dallas Fort Worth International Airport is the primary international airport serving the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex and the North Texas region, in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the largest hub for American Airlines, which is headquartere ...

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 in 1898, and headquartered in Reston, Virginia in the Washington metropolitan area. , the '' E ...

to build the troubled

Big Dig The Big Dig was a megaproject in Boston that rerouted the then elevated Central Artery of Interstate 93 that cut across Boston into the O'Neill Tunnel and built the Ted Williams Tunnel to extend Massachusetts Turnpike, Interstate 90 to Logan I ...

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 area, unincorporated, it is an edge city with a population of 81,015 at the 2020 ...

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 of the United States Construction and civil engineering companies of the United States Consulting firms established in 1885 1885 establishments in New York (state)