Infra Insight Blog

Trainsets

On January 30, the California High-Speed Rail Authority (Authority) issued a draft Request For Proposals (RFP) for Tier III trainsets and invited industry to submit comments.

The Authority is seeking a trainset manufacturer to design, build and maintain Tier III trainsets.  The trainsets will have a minimum of 450 seats and be able to carry passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in less than three hours.

Firms that have submitted expressions of interest accepted by the Authority will be able to comment on the draft RFP.  All comments are due by Tuesday, February 24, 2015 ...

According to a recent internal study conducted by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), the design-build project delivery method provides significant cost and time savings as compared to the traditional design-bid-build delivery method. The study examined FDOT contracts from 2008 to 2012 that were valued between $30 million and $70 million, a group of contracts that included 11 design-build contracts and 47 design-bid-build contracts. Looking in particular at a $55 million, 814‑day design-build project, the study found that the use of design-build results in ...

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 ...

This Friday, January 23, 2015, California will take the first step in investigating a road user charge pilot program as an alternative to the gas tax when the CTC convenes the Road User Charge Advisory Committee meeting.  The committee was created last year by SB 1077 which authorizes a pilot study.  California joins a handful of other states that are exploring road user charge pilot programs, including Oregon, Washington, and Minnesota.

The 15 member committee is made up of representatives of local and regional agencies, privacy advocates, auto groups and state officials.  According ...

The American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) has announced that it will hold its annual Public-Private Partnerships in Transportation Conference on July 15-17, 2015 at the Hyatt Regency Washington in Washington, DC.  This year’s conference, entitled P3s in Transition: The Next Chapter, will again feature a P3 owners-only meeting and interactive sessions, including the continuation of the Great Debate series exploring whether unsolicited proposals add value to P3s.

ARTBA’s annual conference is the nation’s premier and longest-standing event for ...

Javier Rodriguez, P.E., Executive Director of the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority (MDX), is ready to begin his role as president of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA) for 2015.  Rodriguez was elected during IBTTA’s 82nd Annual Meeting and Exhibition in Austin, which brought together nearly 1,000 transportation leaders from more than 20 countries to discuss innovative practices, policies, technologies, funding options and business models transforming mobility for drivers worldwide.

As the executive director of MDX, Rodriguez led the ...

The Regents of the University of California (the Regents), on behalf of the University of California, Merced (UC Merced), announced today that three teams have been shortlisted to submit detailed proposals for the Request for Proposals (RFP) phase of the UC Merced 2020 project.

The three shortlisted teams and their equity members are (in alphabetical order):

• E3 2020:  Balfour Beatty Investments, Inc.

• EP2 Developers:  Edgemoor Infrastructure & Real Estate LLC, Plenary Group (Canada) Ltd., and Education Realty Trust, Inc.

• Merced Campus Collaborative:  Lend Lease (US) Investments ...

At the TRB P3 Subcommittee meeting on January 12, 2015, among the topics discussed is the growth in the U.S. P3 market of the availability payment approach and less use of toll concessions.  Availability payment contracts have the advantage of lowering financing costs, incentivizing high quality performance and keeping toll setting authority with the public owner.  However, there may be a limit to the amount of annual payments a public agency is willing to commit itself to make.  Toll concessions shift demand and revenue risk to the private sector and interest particularly among ...

On January 6, 2015, the California High-Speed Rail Authority (the Authority) achieved a significant milestone — the groundbreaking of the only high-speed rail system in the United States. Gathering at the site of the future train station in downtown Fresno, federal, state and local government officials, as well as hundreds of student, community, transportation, business and labor leaders celebrated the start of construction for the largest infrastructure project in the United States.

California Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. commented on the importance of the high-speed ...

Guest post by Mark Romoff, President and CEO, The Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships

On December 9, 2014, Ontario’s Auditor General released her 2014 Annual Report, sharply criticizing Ontario’s Alternative Financing and Procurement (AFP or P3) program and suggesting a return to using the traditional method of delivering public infrastructure to achieve savings in taxpayer money.  The report expresses skepticism about the cost-saving benefits of the P3 delivery model, directly contradicting what is widely viewed by P3 players and the Canadian public ...