Building America: Then. Now. Next.

United States | Monday, June 29, 2026
Reading Time : 6:00 minutes

For more than 140 years, WSP has shaped the communities we call home, planning, designing and delivering infrastructure from the heart of Manhattan to the Gulf Coast shorelines, connecting people to opportunity, safety and a better quality of life.

This is the story of where we’ve been, where we are now and where we’re heading next, told through the projects that define the spirit of our company.

Then: Built on legacy, proven in practice

The roots of WSP in the U.S. trace back to 1885, when civil engineer William Barclay Parsons founded the firm that would become Parsons Brinckerhoff — a forerunner of WSP.

In the decades that followed, Parsons Brinckerhoff pioneered new frontiers in American infrastructure: engineering the Cape Cod Canal (1914) to give mariners a safer passage, then delivering the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel (1928–1930), one of the earliest international underwater crossings. That pioneering spirit carried forward through the firm’s design of the San Antonio River Tunnel Inlet (1993–1997), a critical flood-control system that safeguards the city’s Downtown and beloved River Walk.

Meanwhile, Louis Berger — another WSP legacy firm — helped deliver the new east span of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge (2002–2013), one of the largest self-anchored suspension bridges in the world. Together, these milestones reflect a lineage of solving the infrastructure challenges that matter to local communities.

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Now: Infrastructure that improves daily life

Legacy is only meaningful if it translates into outcomes people can feel: Safer travel, cleaner water, reliable energy and more resilient communities. Today, we are delivering on that promise across the country.

In Virginia, we’re the engineering consultant on the $3.9 billion Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel Expansion, the largest highway construction project in the state’s history. Replacing the century-old WALK Bridge is strengthening the reliability of one of the Northeast’s most vital rail connections, helping keep people and goods moving safely and efficiently between Boston, New York and Washington, D.C.

The firm has also partnered with the National Park Service across 210 sites nationwide, from transportation planning at the Grand Canyon’s South Rim to the rehabilitation of 49 historic overlooks along Shenandoah’s Skyline Drive. We are playing a role to preserve pivotal chapters in American history through the planning of the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, the Freedom Riders National Monument and the reconstruction of Fort Mose, the first legally sanctioned free Black community in what is now the U.S.

We managed construction of the C-44 Reservoir and Stormwater Treatment Area in the Florida Everglades — the largest environmental restoration project in U.S. history — creating 6,300 acres of man-made wetlands that filter billions of gallons of freshwater before it reaches the St. Lucie Estuary. Our engineers are also designing roadway and drainage adaptations in the Florida Keys to protect low-lying island communities from accelerating sea-level rise.

At the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, our scientists conducted comprehensive biological surveys that yielded the highest-ever biodiversity results in the port complex — more than 56,000 fish, 50,000 birds and 62,000 invertebrates cataloged — demonstrating that thriving marine ecosystems and global commerce can coexist.

National Park Service

South Rim of the Grand Canyon — one of the most iconic and heavily visited natural landmarks in the United States — the National Park Service is working to address growing infrastructure demands while preserving the park’s ecological and visual integrity.

Celilo Converter Station

Modernized converter station provides more reliable power to over 2 million homes on the West Coast.

Underpinning much of this work is a growing suite of digital tools and future-ready engineering solutions.

In Oregon, the firm modernized the Celilo Converter Station, the northern anchor of the longest, highest-capacity direct-current transmission system in the country, delivering more reliable power to over two million homes in the greater Los Angeles area.

Across disciplines, we’re helping shape the AI ecosystem — from designing facilities that create the chips powering advanced models to the data centers processing critical information — with a focus on positive impact.

The firm is also bringing digital transformation to freight networks nationwide through DeepView Freight, an analytics platform that converts truck GPS data into actionable insights for safer roadways and healthier communities.

Learn more about some of our current and recent impactful projects:

Franklin-98 Living Shoreline – Apalachicola Bay, Florida
FEMA Emergency Power – Nationwide
City of Chicago 2022 Climate Action Plan – Chicago, Illinois
Mercedes-Benz Stadium – Atlanta, Georgia

Next: Future-ready by design

The infrastructure Americans will rely on a generation from now is already taking shape — and it looks fundamentally different from what came before. Across the energy landscape, we are partnering with utilities to plan for modernized aging grids, expanded capacity for AI-driven data centers and electrified transit and diversified generation through renewables, hydrogen, carbon capture and nuclear, recognizing that meeting surging demand requires multidisciplinary solutions.

At the same time, our climate-resilience practice is collaborating with communities and organizations to move beyond pilot programs and embed resilience into planning, design and operations at every scale.

On the nation’s roadways, WSP is helping lead a quiet revolution in how people and goods move. We are supporting several connected and automated vehicle research programs for the U.S. Department of Transportation and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program, developing the business models, policy frameworks and infrastructure standards that will allow vehicles, traffic signals and road users to communicate seamlessly.

Paired with advances in AI-powered impact assessments, digital twins, trackless rapid transit and intelligent mobility platforms, these efforts signal a future in which infrastructure doesn’t just carry people from point A to point B: it anticipates their needs, adapts in real time and strengthens the communities we serve.

The future of infrastructure is here, and we’re helping shape it. Read more:

CapMetro YARD Program – Austin, Texas
Advanced Air Mobility – Airports nationwide
Utility Thermal Energy Networks – New York

Turning Freight Data into Better Decisions

DeepView Freight combines datasets, analytical methods and expert interpretation to support agencies when working with complex freight datasets.

The work ahead

From the first subway tunnel to the first automated electric bus, the through-line is the same: infrastructure is how communities thrive. It’s how people get to work safely, how families access clean water, how neighborhoods recover after disaster and how the next generation inherits a more resilient, equitable world.

For 140 years, WSP has been part of that story. We’re just getting started.