Infra Insight Blog

On September 23, 2024, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky issued an Opinion and Order in Mid-America Milling Co., LLC, et al., v. U.S. Department of Transportation, et. al., No. 3:23-CV-00072-GFVT, 2024 WL 4267183 (E.D. Ky. Sept. 23, 2024), granting a preliminary injunction on the basis that the race- and gender-based rebuttable presumptions used in the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program violates the United States Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. ... 

While the Build America Buy America Act aims to promote domestic manufacturing and support American industries, it also presents several challenges. Addressing these challenges requires a balanced approach that balances the Act's objectives with the practical considerations of project management, supply chain dynamics and international trade relations. Join us on March 19th as we discuss these issues and more with Al Caldarelli, Managing Counsel, Commercial Transactions for Massachusetts Department of Transportation and Teddy Low, Senior Deputy County Counsel for Los ...

At the end of 2015, two modal administrations of the United States Department of Transportation (US DOT) have encountered changes to their Buy America programs.  Both the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) have had changes imposed upon their Buy America procedures – the FTA by Congress through provisions in the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (or, FAST Act) and the FHWA through a recent opinion in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing ...

Federal Transit Administration (FTA) grants fund billions of transit-related projects throughout the United States.  In an effort to improve the project delivery process for those projects, the FTA on September 3, 2015, announced the establishment of the Expedited Public Transportation Improvement Initiative (XPEDITE) in the Federal Register.  The FTA is soliciting participation in an online dialogue regarding XPEDITE, the goals of which are to facilitate the transit industry's implementation of the following:

• Proven technologies to improve service delivery and ...

Earlier today, President Barack Obama released his approximately $4 trillion budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2016, which begins on October 1 of this year.  While the President’s proposed budget covers everything from defense to diseases, he has included a particularly ambitious proposal for transportation.

The President’s proposed budget provides $94.7 billion in funding for the Department of Transportation (US DOT), covering infrastructure development and safety enhancement in highways and bridges, transit, railroads, and aviation.  The President is proposing a ...

On Friday, September 5, 2014, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) published its final rule for Value Engineering (VE) for road and bridge projects.  The new rule implements changes made to VE requirements under Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21), the last surface transportation authorization law that was signed into law in July 2012.

The FHWA’s final rule for VE increases the project thresholds that trigger a VE analysis, eliminates the VE analysis requirement for design-build projects, and defines the requirements for a state Department of ...

Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx chaired a virtual town hall meeting, entitled Moving from Uncertainty to Long-Term Transportation Investment, on August 6, 2014.  The town hall was open to the general public, as well as business leaders, transportation advocates, and state and local government officials.  Secretary Foxx discussed the United States Department of Transportation’s (US DOT) vision for the future of transportation, as well as answered questions from attendees about transportation policy.

In his opening remarks, and throughout the question and answer ...

Congress passed a bill (HR 5021) to provide a short-term funding patch for the Highway Trust Fund (HTF), just one day before the United States Department of Transportation was scheduled to begin slowing reimbursements to states for eligible highway, bridge, and mass transit projects.  A failure to act by Congress had the potential to slow-down or stop any number of transportation construction projects across the country in the midst of the construction season.

After volleying the bill back and forth between the chambers over the course of this week, Congress passed a final bill that ...

President Barak Obama today announced the Build America Investment Initiative (the Initiative).  According to the Fact Sheet released by the White House in advance of the announcement, the purpose of the Initiative is to increase infrastructure investment and economic growth by engaging with state and local governments and private sector investors to encourage collaboration, expand the market for public-private partnerships (PPPs) and put federal credit programs to greater use.

The transportation industry will be the first to benefit from the Initiative.

The Fact Sheet lays ...

The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) held its Rail Conference on June 15 through 18, 2014, in Montréal, QC.  In addition to the technical sessions for which APTA is well-known, a main theme of the Rail Conference was the nexus between transit and economic development.  The shift in themes demonstrates transit organizations’ changing philosophy from building and operating transit infrastructure to also catalyzing transit-oriented communities.  Much of the focus on transit and economic development relates to joint development and Transit-Oriented ...

The Transportation Research Board of the National Academies (TRB) has released its second volume of guidance addressing risks in project delivery, including risks associated with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).  This second volume of guidance, entitled Guidance for Managing NEPA-Related and Other Risks in Project Delivery, Volume 2: Expediting NEPA Decisions and Other Practitioner Strategies for Addressing High Risk Issues in Project Delivery, (Volume 2) was submitted in March 2014 under the TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) and ...

On May 14, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) posted a reminder that Buy America, a domestic preference law, applies to the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) program.  FRA posted the reminder because many potential RRIF loan and loan guarantee applicants are short line and regional freight railroads and may not be familiar with Buy America requirements.

The RRIF program was established in 1998 under the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century of 1998 (TEA-21), with subsequent changes to the program coming in the Safe, Accountable ...

On April 29, 2014, President Obama delivered a draft of "Generating Renewal, Opportunity, and Work with Accelerated Mobility, Efficiency, and Rebuilding of Infrastructure and Communities throughout America" or "GROW AMERICA" Act to Congress, promised as his administration’s proposed multi-year surface transportation reauthorization.  This is the first surface transportation authorization proposal to be released, and the House and Senate proposals are likely to be more conservative.

The GROW AMERICA Act proposes to replenish the shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund ...