Posts from July 2011
Posted in Design-Build

Over the past 10 years, California lawmakers have made tremendous strides in providing express design-build procurement authority to pubic agencies in the state. This authority, however, has not been applied evenly across all project types or agencies.

As matters stand in 2011, much broader design-build authority exists for public buildings or vertical projects than for transportation or horizontal projects.  Within the realm of horizontal projects, projects on the state highway system are subject to a number of constraints that do not apply to other types of projects.  And the ...

Yesterday, the Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority awarded a $486 million design-build contract to a Kiewit/Parsons joint venture. The contract is for the 11.5 mile extension of the Metro Gold Line light rail from the Sierra Madre Villa station in the City of Pasadena to Citrus Avenue near the boundary of the City of Azusa and the City of Glendora.  The Authority previously awarded a separate design-build contract to Skanska for the Iconic Freeway Structure within the same alignment.

The Authority made the award decision for the Foothill Extension project using ...

Posted in Financing

On July 19, 2011, the Georgia Department of Transportation issued a press release stating that GDOT was invited to apply for a TIFIA loan in the amount of $270 million for the Northwest Corridor Project – a project to add managed lanes along I-75 and I-575 in the metro Atlanta region with approximately $968 million in capital costs.  The press release followed an announcement by Governor Nathan Deal that the procurement of the Northwest Corridor Project will proceed to the next phase through the issuance of a final Request for Proposals.  Three consortia – consisting of major national ...

Posted in Tunnels

During a July 20, 2011 presentation before the Commonwealth Transportation Board, the Virginia Department of Transportation reported that VDOT reached agreement on major business terms with Elizabeth River Crossings LLC for the design, construction, financing, operations and maintenance of the Midtown Tunnel Project in the Portsmouth and Norfolk area.  As a result of this major milestone, VDOT is targeting to reach financial close on the Midtown Tunnel Project by the end of 2011.  

The Midtown Tunnel Project will involve the construction of a new two-lane tunnel under the ...

Posted in P3s, Policy

If you want to know what a mature, effective federal and state P3 policy can look like, we need not look very far beyond our U.S. borders.  Two Canadian provinces, Ontario and British Columbia, provide us a road map for building successful, sustainable P3 programs and policies.

At the International Bridge Conference in Pittsburgh last month, panelists for a workshop on P3s, including Len Kozachuk with Infrastructure Ontario (IO), described the essential features of this agency and its alternative financing and procurement program.  The contrast with how our federal and state policy ...

Posted in Bridges

We all know that our infrastructure is aging.  Considering how hot the issue of transportation funding (or lack thereof) has become, it is almost impossible not to see or hear something on this topic daily.  That being said, Transportation for America has provided a new way for us to fixate on the state of disrepair of our nation’s bridges – an interactive map.

The map is color-coded and uses green to mark states that are more-or-less maintaining their bridges.  A special hats off to Florida and Nevada, which rank 50th and 51st respectively in the list of disrepair.  In contrast, the map ...

Posted in Financing

Posted by guest blogger Ryan J. Orr

A recently published paper analyzes returns on infrastructure investments and produces some rather surprising findings. The paper, Risk, Return and Cash Flow Characteristics of Infrastructure Fund Investments by Florian Bitsch, Axel Buchner, and Christoph Kaserer, examines an extensive dataset of infrastructure and non-infrastructure deals and finds that the data does not back up the conventional wisdom that infrastructure investments offer long-term, stable and predictable, inflation-linked returns with low correlation to other ...

On June 15, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica and Rep. Bill Shuster, Chairman of the Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Material Subcommittee, introduced the Competition for Intercity Passenger Rail in America Act.

Chairman Mica said: After 40 years of costly and wasteful Soviet-style operations under Amtrak, this proposal encourages private sector competition, investment and operations in U.S. passenger rail service. The legislation would force Amtrak to sell the Northeast Corridor (NEC) to the U.S. government, establish a committee ...

Posted in Financing

As discussed in our previous blog post, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) announced this week the availability of nearly $527 million in FY 2011 funds for the third round of USDOT’s wildly popular TIGER Discretionary Grant program.

Pre-applications for the funds are due by October 3, 2011, and final applications are due by October 31, 2011.  USDOT will host a half-day seminar and webcast providing information and guidance on the TIGER application process on July 18, 2011.

The TIGER program awards funds on a competitive basis to projects that will have a significant ...

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Tags: Financing

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