Infra Insight Blog

The Arizona Department of Transportation announced today its decision to deliver the $1.9 billion South Mountain Freeway Project under a single design-build-maintain public-private partnership.  While there will be a long-term maintenance component, ADOT, in collaboration with the Maricopa Association of Governments and the Arizona Division of the Federal Highway Administration, has decided to use available public funds together with public financing to pay for the project.

ADOT received an unsolicited proposal for the project more than a year ago.  Under its P3 ...

On July 28, 2014, the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) and Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) issued the final request for proposals for a public-private partnership to design, build, finance, operate and maintain the Purple Line light rail transit project using an availability payment approach.  The Purple Line is a 16-mile route extending from New Carrollton in Prince George’s County to Bethesda in Montgomery County, with 21 stations and three links to the Washington DC, Metro and MARC commuter train systems.  The Purple Line has estimated project value of ...

The U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) today released a much-anticipated Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to improve the safe rail transportation of flammable liquids, including petroleum crude oil and ethanol. 

PHMSA also released a companion Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) on oil spill response plans, seeking comments on current thresholds and their applicability to rail and a summary of a study finding that crude oil from the Bakken field presents greater ...

On June 23rd, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the government’s Writ of Certiorari to review the decision of the D.C. Circuit that many believe may be hampering Amtrak’s leverage with freight railroads and its on-time performance.

According to Amtrak’s most recent issued Monthly Performance Report (May 2014), end station on-time performance (OTP) is approximately 74 percent so far this fiscal year (which started October 2013) down 12 percent from FY 2013, when the same performance measure finished at 85 percent.

While the particularly harsh winter weather may have been a ...

As speculation over the federal government’s forthcoming rule on rail shipments of crude oil grows, two items hit the press last week increasing speculation over the details of the reforms.

On July 15, 2014, Bloomberg reported that representatives from the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the Association of American Railroads (AAR) met with the Transportation Department at the Office of Management and Budget on July 11 to present a joint plan for the phase-out of older tank cars.  According to Bloomberg, two people familiar with the proposal, who were not identified, said ...

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 141-year-old Baltimore and Potomac (B&P) Tunnel is a major bottleneck on the Northeast Corridor, but Amtrak, the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) and Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) are conducting a study to examine alternatives to improve or replace the tunnel. 

The two-track B&P Tunnel is used by Amtrak, Maryland's MARC Commuter Rail trains and Norfolk Southern freight trains. The track geometry of the outdated tunnel creates a low-speed bottleneck impacting approximately 85 Amtrak trains, 57 MARC commuter trains and one to two freight trains each day.

On June 12 and 13, 2014, Railway Age’s Crude by Rail Conference and Expo brought together representatives from the oil and gas industry, railroads, rail car manufacturers, Federal government, emergency response organizations and Wall Street, to address the implications of the dramatic increase in shipments of petroleum by rail (CBR).

Several informative presentations were made on tank car specifications and numerous other technical topics.  This posting will summarize the policy and regulatory issues.

Ed Hamburger, President of the Association of American Railroads ...

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 ...

According to a recently released study by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, a public-private partnership (P3) may be the most effective method to deliver a proposed expansion of the San Francisco Veterans Administration Medical Center (SFVAMC) – but there are some barriers that need clearing.

The SFVAMC is a leading Veterans Administration (VA) medical center, having the largest research program in the national VA system, and providing one-third of the clinical education and curriculum for medical students and residents from the medical school at the University of ...