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Financial Close for PennDoT’s Major Bridge Initiative

Although 2022 saw many changes and challenges for PennDoT’s Major Bridge P3 Initiative, the year ended with a successful financial close. On December 22nd, Bridging Pennsylvania Partners (BPP) announced that it had reached financial close for the first package of six bridges to be replaced under the program. The remaining three bridges in the program […]

Brightline Las Vegas Advances Towards 2023 Financing

After delaying the financing of its LA-Las Vegas high speed rail project in 2021, it now appears that Brightline West is moving the final pieces into place, and will have another bite at the apple in 2023. The 220-mile rail line could see a groundbreaking by the end of the year.

The Evaluation of Toll Road Traffic and Revenue Forecasts

The professional skill sets and capabilities necessary for either the evaluation or the preparation of toll road traffic and revenue (T&R) studies should be comparable.  But in actual practice, they are not.

Maryland OP Lanes Commercial Close Delayed

After four years of planning and predevelopment, the concession for the first phase of Maryland’s OP Lanes initiative is on the verge of reaching commercial close. Unfortunately, it will be just a few months too late to be awarded prior to the end of Governor Larry Hogan’s final term in office. In November, MDoT announced […]

Colorado Rejects I-25 North Express Lanes Proposal

At its board meeting in November, the Colorado Transportation Investment Office (CTIO) rejected an unsolicited proposal to add approximately 21 miles of express lanes along I-25 between Denver and Fort Collins. The conceptual proposal for the project was originally received in March 2021, and called for the addition of two express lanes in each direction. […]

Predevelopment Partner Selected for Potrero Bus Yard P3

This month, the San Francisco Metropolitan Transit Agency (SFMTA) moved its trailblazing Potrero Yard Modernization Project P3 forward by selecting Potrero Neighborhood Collective LLC, led by Plenary Americas, as its predevelopment partner. The long-awaited predevelopment award has been in the works since the SFMTA accepted original proposals for the project in late December 2020, and […]

Maryland OP Lanes Hit with NEPA Lawsuit

To the surprise of no one, and to the chagrin of Maryland’s Governor Larry Hogan (R), the state’s OP Lanes initiative is facing new litigation. This month, the project was on the receiving end of a lawsuit challenging the project’s federal permit under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

The Urban Economics and Regional Politics of the Freeway Removal Project

Highway removal projects are nothing new, at least in concept. The movement to tear down urban highways emerged in the early 1960s, around the same time, and often from the same corners, as the anti-highway-development movement. In more recent decades, many cities have flirted with the idea of highway removal. And some have pulled it […]

First Segment Opens for I-66 Outside the Beltway

“We are now transforming the most congested area, the most congested road in the United States of America,” said then-Governor Terry McAuliffe at the November 2017 groundbreaking of I-66 Outside the Beltway.