High-speed rail advocates celebrated the Jan. 28 award of grants from the $8-billion pot that is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, but officials must now figure out how to leverage the seed money into successful long-term programs. Florida, one of the big grant winners at $1.25 billion, is now pondering design-build and public-private partnerships along with other funding sources.
Most of the funds went to long-term programs that now can proceed with environmental reviews and preliminary engineering. But some projects specifically were “shovel-ready,” says David J. Carol, market leader of high-speed rail for Parsons Brinckerhoff, New York City. “Those will be going to design-build or final design fairly quickly under the terms of the legislation, in which they need to be completed in two years,” he says.