Infra Insight Blog

The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) announced on April 19, 2013 that it accepted Statements of Qualifications (SOQs) from seven proposers in response to a Request for Qualifications for the I-4 Ultimate Project.  The list of proposer teams may be found at the I-4 Ultimate Project website.

The project involves the reconstruction of over 21 miles of I-4 in Orange and Seminole Counties, including 19 major interchanges, 56 new bridges and 71 bridge replacements, and the addition of two managed toll lanes in each direction.  The estimated cost of the project is approximately ...

On May 1, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) will hold an industry forum to present initial concepts for several multimodal P3 projects that are being considered for the Sepulveda Pass Corridor in Los Angeles County.  The forum will be held from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in the Ticket Room at Los Angeles Union Station.  Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe, and Art Leahy, Metro's CEO, are expected to address the forum attendees.

The projects under consideration include a high-capacity rail system and a tolled ...

Possibly lost in the shuffle of the rollout last week is the news that the President’s budget proposal (PDF) includes $130 million to help fund two significant transit system improvements in Los Angeles, the Regional Connector and the West Side Extension.

The Regional Connector would be a 1.9-mile underground line that would tie together the Gold, Blue and Expo lines and allow a one-seat ride from Montclair to Long Beach and from East Los Angeles to Santa Monica.  The West Side Extension would build out the Purple Line subway from Wilshire & Western to Westwood, a distance of 9.5 ...

The California High-Speed Rail Authority recently announced that a joint venture composed of Tutor Perini, Zachry Construction and Parsons has provided the apparent best value proposal for the initial design-build construction package of California's high-speed rail system located in the Central Valley. The Authority received four other proposals from Dragados/Samsung/Pulice (composed of  Dragados SA; Samsung C&T America and Pulice Construction), California Backbone Builders (composed of Ferrovial Argoman and Acciona), California High-Speed Rail Partners (composed ...

More evidence of the beneficial impacts of transit-oriented development has arrived in the form of a new property values study by the American Public Transportation Association, the Center for Neighborhood Technology and the National Association of Realtors.  

(See also our blog post regarding the EPA report released last month promoting funding mechanisms and other strategies for communities to provide more transit-oriented development.)  

The study found that homes closer to public transit performed 42 percent better (in terms of resilience of property values)  than those ...

This week the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) issued a Request for Information (RFI) requesting private sector involvement to collect best practices for delivery and financing of the planned Maryland National Capital Purple Line and Baltimore Red Line.  The proposed Maryland National Capital Purple Line is a 16-mile light rail transit line project that will extend between Bethesda and New Carrollton, Maryland.  The proposed Baltimore Red Line is a 14.1 mile, east-west transit line that will connect Woodlawn, Downtown Baltimore and Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center ...

Nossaman would like to congratulate the California Department of Transportation and the San Francisco County Transportation Authority for the Presidio Parkway Project's recognition as the "Best Real Estate Deal of the Year" in the category of Infrastructure/Public-Private Partnership by the San Francisco Business Times.  Winners were announced at the publication's annual awards dinner in San Francisco on March 20, 2013.

This recognition is the latest in a number of industry awards honoring the Presidio Parkway Project, which is the first transportation project to be procured ...

As the 2013 award season heats up for 2012 successes around the world, the juries are increasingly finding the US market hard to ignore. Infrastructure Journal and PPP Bulletin International, the two London-based media organizations that annually recognize top projects and industry organizations worldwide, have each announced their finalists for this year's best transportation transactions and firms. Focusing on public-private partnership projects as opposed to those mega-projects which are the subject of major design-build contracts, these organizations ...

In a proposed rule to be published today, April 1, 2013, in the Federal Register, the United States Environmental Protection Agency will withdraw the numeric effluent limits for construction stormwater turbidity that the agency previously had proposed in 2009.  EPA is now proposing a rule that specifies minimum Best Management Practices (BMPs) as effluent limitations for purposes of controlling  pollutants in construction site stormwater runoff.  In general,  the rule concludes that BMP-based effluent limits constitute both a technically feasible and a cost effective way to ...

Almost a year to the day from when the procurement began, the East End Crossing P3 project has achieved financial close.  Raising nearly $1 billion of public and private debt and equity funding, WVB East End Partners, made up of equal shares to WI East End (Walsh), VINCI Concessions Investments and Bilfinger East End Holdings, will now finalize design and begin construction of the project which consists of a new bridge over the Ohio River, a tunnel as part of the Kentucky approach, and a highway as part of the Indiana approach.  Indiana Finance Authority acts as the public sponsor under the ...