Briefs

April saw a decline of 2.9% in traffic numbers compared to April last year at eleven crossings of the Public Border Operators Association according the spreadsheet they issued today. Traffic during April this year was 2.97m vs 3.06m April 2012, 88k fewer.

Lewiston-Queenston a big trucking route saw traffic down 9.5% -  285k vs 316k last April. 

The Transportation Corridors Agencies (TCA) which run the San Joaquin Hills and Foothill and Eastern tollroads in Orange County California have chosen Neil Peterson as their new chief executive officer. He comes from CH2MHill where he was a a transportation strategy consultant, and before that Booz Allen & Hamilton.  He was founding CEO of the car sharing firm Flexcar, renamed Zipcar now part of Avis.

Other positions he has held:

2008 thru' 2010 with a combination of open road tolling leftside and cash toll collection rightside (ORT+cash) there were an average 63 crashes per year in the vicinity of the four mainline toll points (Miramar, Okeechobee, Bird Road and Homestead) on the Homestead Extension of Florida's Turnpike (HEFT), the Turnpike's Miami area spokesman Sonyha Rodriguez-Miller tells us.  

Annual crashes in the same four locations with all-electronic tolling (the cash plaza barriered off) numbered 40 in the latest full year period for which they have data - a decline of 37%.

Michigan DOT is proposing to lift a ban on two of three 'hazardous materials' crossing the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor but to impose more encompassing escort requirements. The change follows a long period of study including a "Hazardous Materials Routing Synopsis Report" which recommended the blanket ban continue on explosives but that radioactive and corrosive materials be allowed across the bridge with an escort.

"Nothing prepares first-time travelers barreling up toward Paris on Autoroute 75 for the Millau Viaduct, a long and towering white apparition that suddenly appears around a bend of the Massif Central. Framed by the windshield, seven lithe, stately masts, each with fanning cables, sail 1½ miles across the Tarn Gorge, holding up a roadbed 885 feet above the Tarn River, above even the cloud line that often shrouds the valley.

You thought US government transportation dollars were for transportation - for helping people and their stuff to be moved where they need to go? Wrong. To improve mobility and alleviate congestion? Wrong.

None other than the Washington Post's Robert Thomson who writes under the title Dr Gridlock says that the Washington DC streetcar project "isn't just about moving people."

"It's about neighborhood buzz and identity."

At the local firehouse just a few blocks away I was chatting with one of the firemen, and told him that I have a smart phone so smart it often makes calls on its own initiative. And people say I've been calling them when I know I haven't.

Fitch have issued a spreadsheet of current ratings of US tollers' debts. There aren't many changes. Just these:

- Harris County Toll Road Authority (Houston) was upgraded to 'AA' from 'AA-'

- Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority (Peace Bridge) was upgraded to 'A' from 'A-'

- Toll Road Investors Partnership II (Dulles Greenway VA) was downgraded to 'BB+' from 'BBB-'

They they'll shortly be publishing report titled 'Peer Review of U.S. Toll Roads: Attribute Assessments, Metrics, and Ratings.'

President Obama's selection as new US Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx appears to be in the mold of other big city Democratic mayors as an enthusiast for light rail and bike paths. As mayor of Charlotte NC he pushed  extension of the city’s light rail system that runs from southwest to northeast across the metro area, a project which will double its length to the UNC-Charlotte campus by 2018.  Cost of 9.5 miles: $1.2b.

Metro Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) has got some good news out - lower than expected design-build bids for Phase 2 of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Line, most of which is being funded with bonds pledging future toll revenues of the Dulles Toll Road. MWAA is giving the job to the low bidder Capital Rail Constructors comprising Clark and Kiewit. Their price was $1,177.8m. MWAA executive Pat Nowakowski is quoted as saying their expectation was that bids would be in the range $1,400m to $1,600m.