As state transportation agency chiefs gathered for their annual winter meeting in Washington, D.C., they received some encouraging news from Congress on highway and transit funding for the short term, but not as many answers as they had hoped about the murky longer-range legislative picture. During the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ legislative briefing on March 2-4, Congress cleared—and President Obama signed—a bill that extends highway and transit authorizations for seven months, the seventh stopgap since the last multiyear measure lapsed in September 2009. Also enacted while the meeting proceeded was a temporary appropriations bill to keep
The Israeli government is planning an estimated $800-million expansion of the 140-kilometer Cross-Israel Highway, the country’s sole north-south toll road. A joint committee of ministry representatives has issued a request for proposals for two extensions totaling 20.5 km, including 3.7 km of tunnels. Photo: TEDEM Civil Engineering Two planned extensions to the Cross-Israel highway, the country’s first toll road, will add 20.5 kilometers and three tunnels to its 140-km length. The highway’s original $1-billion segment, designed to allow drivers to bypass the congested Tel Aviv metropolitan area and substantially reduce north-south travel times, opened in 2001. “This is one of
Kenyan roads officials say plans for the first toll road in sub-Saharan Africa to be built under a public-private partnership have “collapsed” after the prime financier’s “integrity concerns” about a concession partner have led it to back out of the deal, although the challenged partner, the Austrian construction firm of Strabag SE, denies the plan is dead. Slide Show A consortium plan to design, construct and operate six segments of a 77-kilometer toll road as well as a 29-km southern bypass under a 30-year concession apparently has “collapsed.” Franklin Bett, the Kenyan roads minister, said in a press conference on
State and local transportation officials as well as firms that design and build roads and subway projects now have a bit more market stability, thanks to a newly enacted measure that extends federal highway and transit programs through Sept. 30, the last day of the 2011 fiscal year. The bill, which President Obama signed on March 4, freezes funding at fiscal 2010 levels for about seven months. The new measure’s highway obligation limit will be about $24 billion, or roughly 7/12ths of 2010’s full-year obligation ceiling of $41.1 billion. The legislation is the latest—and the second-longest—of seven extensions since Sept.
In a move that will provide some stability for transportation construction, the Senate has approved a bill to extend federal highway and transit programs through Sept. 30, the last day of the 2011 fiscal year. Senate passage of the bill, which came on a March 3 voice vote, marks final congressional action on the measure, which provides an authorization of about seven months. The House had approved the bill one day earlier. President Obama is expected to sign the legislation on March 4. The bill would be the seventh stopgap highway-transit authorization since Sept. 30, 2009, when the last multi-year
In a move that will provide some stability for transportation construction, President Obama has signed legislation to extend federal highway and transit programs through Sept. 30, the last day of the 2011 fiscal year. Obama signed the measure on March 4, the date on which a previous short stopgap was slated to expire. Final congressional approval of the bill came on March 3, when the Senate passed it on a voice vote. The House had approved the measure one day earlier. The bill is the seventh stopgap highway-transit authorization since Sept. 30, 2009, when the last multi-year statute, the 2005
With the start of the prime road-building season drawing near, the House has approved legislation that would extend federal highway and transit programs through Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year. The next step is action by the Senate, which is expected to pass the roughly seven-month-long measure soon. The bill would be the seventh stopgap highway-transit authorization since Sept. 30, 2009, when the last multi-year statute expired. The current extension is scheduled to lapse on March 4. Construction and state transportation officials would have strongly preferred to see Congress approve a new long-term bill, but the seven-month
The federal transportation trust fund remains moored as competing interests in Congress wrangle over spending priorities. Meanwhile, transportation agencies, anticipating a resurgence in cargo as the Panama Canal is expanded and as the economy improves, are moving forward with united interests, despite uncertainties over funding. Four years ago, the U.S. Dept. of Transportation granted $15 million to Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah to begin studying some 840 miles of Interstate 15 for optimal freight movement, part of its Corridors of the Future program, which is now in limbo as it awaits further funding. But Susan Martinovich, director of the Nevada
Two proposed Northwest port facilities to export coal to China are facing hurdles. Millennium Bulk Logistics, a subsidiary of Australia’s Ambre Energy North America, with a partial stake owned by St. Louis-based Arch Coal Inc., wants to upgrade the Longview Terminal Facility on the Columbia River, roughly 45 miles downstream of Portland, Ore. But environmental groups, including the Washington Dept. of Ecology, have filed suit against the project, claiming Cowlitz County didn’t follow state law in awarding a shoreline permit. Millennium bought 416 acres of a former aluminum smelter in January. It wants to replace 150 creosote river pilings and
A fter a series of political volleys on Feb. 25 between Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) and U.S. Dept. of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who proffered a week’s extension of the U.S. DOT’s deadline for accepting federal funding for a $2.7-billion high-speed-rail line, the governor showed no signs of changing his opinion and approving a deal. On Feb. 25, the original deadline for Florida, media reports said the governor was rejecting a second proposal that provided for a Tampa-Orlando line. That latest proposal created an interlocal entity to oversee the project and shield the state from liability. Scott initially rejected
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