Infra Insight Blog

On November 14, a bipartisan group of ten U.S. Senators, led by Mark Warner (D-VA) and Roy Blunt (R-MO), introduced legislation to create a new independent Infrastructure Financing Authority (IFA) to issue loans and loan guarantees for transportation, water, and energy transmission, storage and distribution infrastructure.  S. 1716, titled the Building and Renewing Infrastructure for Development and Growth in Employment or BRIDGE Act, has been referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation for review. Other cosponsors are Lindsey Graham (R-SC ...

The Indiana Finance Authority (IFA) issued its Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for an availability payments public private partnership for the financing, building and operating of the Indiana portion of the Illiana Corridor Project (the Indiana Portion) and I-65 Added Capacity Project (I-65 Project and collectively with the Indiana Portion, the Project) on November 12.  The Illiana Corridor Project is a collaborative effort among the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT), Indiana Department of Transportation, and IFA to construct a highway, approximately 46.8 ...

Last week I attended an invitation only round table organized by Karen Hedlund, Deputy Administrator for the Federal Railroad Administration.  The round table was held in conjunction with the High Speed Rail Conference held at LA Metro's headquarters in Los Angeles, California.  With the House T&I Committee expected to begin marking up a rail bill, Ms. Hedlund sought ideas about how to expand the Railroad Rehabilitation Improvement Financing credit program to be a more useful source of low cost debt capital for commuter rail projects.  Around for a number of years, RRIF has been ...

As long time participants in the alternative delivery sector know, the Design-Build Institute of America has from its earliest days sought to set forth guiding principles that would be universally applicable across all sectors--no small task. At its annual conference this week in Las Vegas, Mike Loulakis and Diane Hoag presented the latest revised draft of its recommended best practices, called "Design-Build Done Right."

While the organization expects these principles to evolve and be refined over time, it is seeking comments on this new version before November 15, 2013. The ...

On Saturday, October 19, 13 cars on a Canadian National train derailed west of Edmonton, Alberta, and three cars carrying liquefied natural gas leaked and burned.  No injuries were reported.  This accident follows a similar incident in July in which a train with 72 tank cars of crude oil derailed in the town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec.  That derailment triggered a series of explosions that killed 47 people. The tank cars carrying the oil were non-pressure tank cars that meet specific DOT containment standards, classified as DOT-111 cars.

These incidents have attracted scrutiny from ...

The California High-Speed Rail Authority (Authority) issued its Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for Construction Package 2-3 (CP2-3) on October 10 and will be hosting an industry forum for the project on October 29, 2013.  The RFQ calls for contractors to submit their qualifications to bid on the second phase of high speed rail construction, consisting of a 60-mile route from Fresno south to the Tulare-Kern County line near Bakersfield.  The construction contract for the first 29 miles, from Madera to Fresno, was signed on August 19 of this year.

Firms will have until December 6 to ...

In anticipation of the US federal shutdown which occurred on October 1st, this year, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) on September 27th outlined its shutdown plan, which includes furloughs for more than 18,000 of its approximately 55,000 employees.

The various agencies within USDOT have been impacted differently by the shutdown, depending on the extent to which their activities are funded through the federal government’s annual appropriations process, which lapsed this year and resulted in the current funding gap that caused the shutdown.

The shutdown’s ...

The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) and Infrastructure Corporation of America (ICA) have entered into a concession agreement under which ICA will operate and maintain ADOT’s 14 highway rest areas.  The concession agreement is the first agreement ADOT has executed under its public-private partnership (P3) statute, which has been in place since 2009, and is one of several P3 opportunities ADOT is pursuing.

ADOT’s concession agreement with ICA went into effect on October 1st and has an initial term of five years.  ADOT may, at its discretion, extend the term of the ...

The North Tarrant Express Segments 3A & 3B Project (Project) reached financial close earlier today.  The Project will provide over $1.5 billion of needed infrastructure to the Fort Worth area, as well as operations and maintenance over the next several decades.  The Project will expand Interstate 35W in north Fort Worth, one of the region’s top priorities for congestion relief.  Segments 3A and 3B are the primary focus of the North Tarrant Express Master Development Plan, and will add approximately 10 miles of I-35W to the North Tarrant Express project.

Pursuant to the agreement ...

We are now a short distance away from expiration of MAP-21, with no solution in sight for sources of funding to sustain the federal highway program.  There is no stomach in Congress to increase federal gas taxes or to make real progress toward replacing gas taxes with mileage-based user fees.

As for tolls, Rep. Bill Shuster, Chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said in a speech last week that they might be even more difficult to do than some of the user fees."  Tolling of interstates that have been free for decades would not be kindly received by voters, according to ...