The National Journal Transportation Expert Blog this week asked whether states should be allowed to commercialize rest stops. I thought this was a timely question, and responded with the following:
The upcoming reauthorization will present an excellent opportunity for Congress to rethink its outdated blanket prohibition on the commercialization of state-owned safety rest stops.
This is no longer simply a question of who gets to sell fast food to weary travelers. The question is: how will we maintain our interstates to truly serve motorists’ changing needs at a time when ...
Jeffrey Parker, President of Jeffrey A. Parker and Associates, has worked closely with Nossaman on several projects, including two recent projects in Florida. We are pleased to include his comments here as a guest to Infra Insight.
The House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit invited me to participate in a hearing on April 14, 2010 on Using Innovative Financing to Deliver Highway and Transit Projects. As a participant on the panel, I was pleased to share my firm’s experiences with availability payments and answer questions from the Subcommittee Members on the I-595 and Port of ...
USDOT has published interim guidance on its new TIGER II competitive grant program, a $600M successor to the popular $1.5B TIGER program included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The guidance outlines application deadlines, eligibility and project selection criteria, and indicates a shift in the focus of the program from near-term job creation to long-term outcomes.
TIGER II is not constrained by ARRA’s focus on shovel ready projects and immediate job creation (funds must be awarded by 9/30/2012, but there is no deadline for expenditure or project completion). Instead, TIGER II seeks long-term outcomes, though these outcomes fall in the same general areas as TIGER I: safety, economic competitiveness, livability, sustainability, and state of good repair (the extent to which a project improves the condition of existing infrastructure and minimize life-cycle costs).
Click below for additional details about the focus and requirements of TIGER II.
The IBTTA is discussing the future of tolling existing interstate capacity in light of the Federal Highway Administration’s decision to reject Pennsylvania’s application to toll Interstate 80.
My opinion?
The political barriers to tolling existing interstate capacity are just as real and monumental as raising the gas tax. In the short to mid term the more likely scenario is an acceleration of the trend to toll new capacity within existing interstate rights of way. The Ft. Lauderdale I-595, the Ft. Worth North Tarrant Express, and the Dallas I-635 are all recent examples of ...
On April 7, 2010, the California Transportation Commission (CTC) authorized the first two regional design-build projects under the state's innovative contracting authority under Senate Bill 4, SBX2 4.
- The ExpressLane Project is a joint state/local project of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro) and the Department of Transportation (Caltrans), which will be implemented by Caltrans. The project will convert existing carpool lanes on Interstates 10 and 110 to high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes, or ExpressLanes.
- The Riverside County ...
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