Free Republic

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation took the next step toward replacing and charging tolls on as many as nine bridges Monday, but motorists won’t pay to use the bridges until 2023 at the earliest. PennDOT announced it has selected three firms to submit proposals for finishing the design of the nine bridges and propose whether to bundle them together under one contract, replace them individually or a combination of the two. The department’s goal is to turn the bridges over to private firms to design and replace them, then maintain them for 30 years with the tolls covering the costs....

LET’S BUILD INFRASTRUCTURE is preparing to launch formally in Washington, D.C., next week with a six-figure advertising blitz focused on pressing lawmakers to use privatization, rather than taxation, to pay for the infrastructure proposals debated in Congress. The organization touts public-private partnerships and a process known as “asset recycling,” in which the government finances new construction and repairs by selling or leasing roads, bridges, water utilities, parking lots, and other infrastructure assets to private contractors instead of paying for them with public funding. The private operators in turn recoup costs by adding tolls or increasing user fees, such as water...

Maryland transportation officials announced Thursday that they have selected Australian toll road operator Transurban to develop high-occupancy toll lanes for the Capital Beltway and Interstate 270, potentially cementing the company’s dominance in the Washington region. If Transurban and its partner, Australian investment bank Macquarie Capital, ultimately reach a 50-year deal with the state to build and operate the lanes, Transurban eventually would control 102 miles of express toll lanes around the nation’s capital — 37 in Maryland and 65 in Northern Virginia. Connecting high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes in the two states would mark the beginnings of a regional network of...

NORTH RICHLAND HILLS - Every day on her drive home from work, Kali Roberts is taken aback by the angry pile of motorists who converge on westbound Loop 820 in North Richland Hills. Traffic coming from Texas 121/183 “Airport Freeway” must squeeze from four to two lanes, between Boulevard 26 and Rufe Snow Drive, causing gridlock that persists not only during rush hour periods but most of the day. Meanwhile, as drivers on the nearby TEXPress lanes whiz by at 75 mph, motorists in the toll-free lanes crawl at about 10 mph and cut each other off, including many who...

WASHINGTON — Toll lanes around the Capital Beltway and I-270 in Maryland could be built in several separate phases and even operated by different companies under the latest plans released to industry insiders. It indicates Beltway construction could last for years. The first phase would include fixes for the Legion Bridge.A new document sent last week ahead of the next forum for private companies that could design, build and operate the lanes said that while Maryland eventually plans more than 70 miles of toll lanes from Frederick to Bethesda and from the Legion Bridge to near Oxon Hill, building out...

The southern, privately built section of Texas 130, which has been an obstacle course of bumps and cracks since shortly after its October 2012 opening, will see $60 million of pavement repairs over the next year in 35 spots between Mustang Ridge and Seguin. Crews in many cases will be removing five feet or more of the road’s “sub-base,” the treated and compacted soil layers that underlie the highway’s asphalt driving surface, replacing it with soil with different, stronger properties, and then repaving those rehabilitated sections. Some repairs will also include installation of impermeable layers of soil alongside the road...

President Donald Trump’s $1 trillion plan to rebuild America’s infrastructure may be unprecedented in size and ambition, but it mimics a controversial scheme championed by Vice President Mike Pence when he was the governor of Indiana. That’s why Pence is the public face of the Trump initiative, and executives from financial firms that helped privatize Indiana’s toll road are in the White House, busily sculpting Trump’s national plan. Pence and his allies like to boast about how Indiana sold control of major roads to private firms, claiming the move prompted corporations to invest money in infrastructure that would otherwise have...

Investors are hoping to seize upon the $1 trillion infrastructure plan proposed by President Donald Trump to transform the nation’s highways, bridges, and tunnels into assets they can monetize by adding tolls and other user fees.The Trump infrastructure plan, which the administration plans to roll out this week, is centered on the idea of “asset recycling,” which refers to the process of securing new infrastructure spending by leasing the operations of existing public property to private operators.The privatization-centered scheme has the nation’s largest toll operators salivating. Transurban, Cintra, and TransCore, three major toll operators, have retained federal lobbyists to influence...

A challenge to the state's I-77 toll lane was denied by the N.C. Court of Appeals today.The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel upheld a lower court, which had dismissed a citizen group's attempt to stop the public-private project in Mecklenburg and Iredell counties.This was a big political issue in the 2016 governor's race, costing Pat McCrory a lot of votes in those counties. As a legal issue, the opposition doesn't seem to have much gas.I-77 from Charlotte to Mooresville is a traffic nightmare. To address the congestion, the state's DOT in 2014 signed a contract with a Delaware LLC...

Texas had high hopes for the southern segments of SH 130, a 41-mile stretch of the high-speed toll road east of San Antonio. The state had put off building that stretch of road until a pair of investors stepped forward and offered what sounded like a great deal: Texas would get a big check for turning the rights to build and operate the toll road over to a private entity, a move that would give the state a new highway and a share of the tolls. The state would own the road and rake in revenue, but wouldn't have to...

Dear Editor, As states and municipalities around the nation struggle to find ways to afford much-needed improvements to aging and congested roadways, the Commonwealth of Virginia has established itself as an innovative leader when it comes to carefully prioritizing the state’s transportation investments and wisely leveraging private sector resources to ensure the best deal for state taxpayers. The I-66 Outside the Beltway project exemplifies this leadership, and Cintra, together with its partner Meridiam, is proud to be part of the team selected by the Commonwealth to finance, design, build, operate and maintain this more than $3 billion transformative project at...

The Commonwealth of Virginia awarded procurement of its Transform66 Outside the Beltway project to I-66 Express Mobility Partners, a consortium of private companies, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced on Nov. 3. I-66 Express Mobility Partners, which consists of transportation infrastructure company Cintra, public infrastructure investment firm Meridiam, and the contractors Ferrovial Agroman US and Allan Myers VA, Inc., will be responsible for financing, designing, building, maintaining and operating the interstate expansion. The Virginia Department of Transportation’s (VDOT) Transform66 Outside the Beltway project will add two express lanes in each direction between I-495 and Gainesville along with three general purpose lanes...

State officials are soliciting ideas from private companies to build and operate a large section of the Grand Parkway, a long-planned Houston-area outer loop that has drawn criticism from environmentalists and urban planners. Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7636418.html#ixzz1Qwy2u5gk

Rick Perry may just be the guy. The country's longest tenured governor, from its second-largest state, is generating a lot of buzz in conservative circles as he contemplates entering the wide open Republican presidential primary. There are plenty of reasons that Perry is an attractive option: he is a no-nonsense decision-maker with solid conservative credentials. A man who not only speaks about family values, but lives them, Perry's power to persuade voters to see things his way is proven -- battle-tested in a state known for independent-minded citizens. But what serious political analysts on both sides of the aisle will...

The Texas Department of Transportation is pulling the last plug on the Trans-Texas Corridor, Gov. Rick Perry's embattled plan to build a toll-road network across the state. The agency said earlier this year it was scaling down the project and dropping the name "Trans-Texas Corridor." Now, transportation officials say it's fully dead. Transportation Commissioner Bill Meadows told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram of the decision in a report posted online Tuesday. The news comes a day after Perry's Republican primary opponent, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, secured the coveted endorsement of the powerful Texas Farm Bureau — a vocal opponent of the...

Home | Contact Us | Site Map | Español Business with TxDOT | Careers | Drivers & Vehicles | Local Information | News | Projects | Public Involvement | Safety | Travel | TxDOT Library | About Us E-Mail Us Statewide Local Podcasts Statewide Media Contacts Local Media Contacts Contact: Karen Amacker Phone: (512) 463-8954   February 26, 2009   Highly Anticipated LBJ-635 Expansion Contract Conditionally Awarded Multi-billion dollar transportation project to support local economy and improve congestion, air qualityAUSTIN—The Texas Transportation Commission voted Thursday to conditionally award the New LBJ project to LBJ Development Partners, positioning the North...

In my recent letter to you concerning the TTC, I misquoted some information about the company known as Cintra. Mr. Patrick Rhodes of Cintra wrote in response to my mistake. Therefore, I stand corrected with the following: Fellow citizens, the company, Cintra, is not affiliated with ZAI-ACS. Cintra is partnered with Zachry on some TxDOT projects and ACS is partnered with Zachry on some other TxDOT projects. Therefore, I hope this clarifies the over-zealous statements in my letter. Cintra is a Spanish-owned company, and ACS is a larger Spanish-owned company. Zachry, a Texas company, is affiliated with each of them...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Public investment funds based in Texas could invest directly in transportation projects through a new corporation under a plan unveiled on Thursday by the state's legislative leaders and the governor. Texas has the nation's biggest road privatization plan but the legislature, reacting to criticisms that developers were enriching themselves at the expense of taxpayers, enacted a two-year moratorium. That has crimped road-building projects and led to a series of clashes between the governor and the legislature, who now have agreed on a compromise plan. Developers, including overseas companies, investment banks and private equity funds all vie...

Lately I have heard from some of you, asking about the Corridor. Most folks believe it is over, dead, gone from our beautiful East Texas. I have been watching our government's actions on this subject. Did you know that in TxDOT's cover letter to the federal government it states they will only use existing highways to build their corridor? Did you know that TxDOT also stated that it may need to build in non-existing paths also, some time in the future. Citizens, I write you today to make sure you understand that the corridor issue in Trinity County has not...

AUSTIN — The Texas Transportation Commission on Thursday selected San Antonio's Zachry Construction Corp. and a Spanish toll road developer to plan a superhighway from Texarkana to Brownsville. The $5 million contract calls for Zachry American Infrastructure and ACS Infrastructure to create a financial plan for the Interstate 69 segment of the Trans-Texas Corridor. "This team represents the best in the balance of local and global expertise necessary to complete a project of this scope," said David Zachry, chief operating officer of Zachry Construction Corp. The private developers' plan calls for seven new loops around Corpus Christi and other cities...