Arkansas DOT has selected Parsons Transportation Group to receive the contract to provide engineering and design services for its joint endeavor with Tennessee DOT to replace the I-55, “America’s River Crossing” bridge, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports. The project received a $394 million grant this summer through the federal Bridge Investment Program, and each state has committed up to $250 million to round out the funding. Tolling is not part of the financing package. “As the contract with Parsons Transportation Group, Inc. is finalized, the next anticipated milestone will be selecting the firm to carry out the Construction Manager/General Contractor (CM/GC) method of Alternative Delivery, which is used to streamline large, complex projects,” according to an ARDOT news release.
Public
Social Media Post Spreads False Information About Hurricane Evacuation Route Tolling
USA Today fact checkers rated “false” a Tuesday, October 8, social media post that showed a map of Hurricane Milton evacuation routes, one of which was supposedly charging tolls. “Why the **** are tolls still in place on an evacuation route?” the post contributor asked. The item was reposted more than a thousand times in a single day and inspired other social media messaging.
As the newspaper noted, Florida’s governor “announced tolls would be lifted in areas in Milton’s path starting on Oct. 7 at 10:30 a.m.,” and, therefore, his suspension order was already in effect on the evacuation route shown in the social media post before it spread misinformation.
New White Paper Explores Impact Of Road Pricing On Traffic Volume
ITSInternational reports on the release of research providing insight into how different road pricing systems affect traffic volume. In a new white paper, The Traffic Impact of Road Pricing, the CSRB Group analyses data from 76 international toll road, bridge, tunnel, and cordon case studies and concludes that imposing charges tends to significantly increase traffic diversion.
According to CSRB senior partner Robert Bain, “We collected additional data for each of our case studies in terms of the toll facilities’ characteristics, toll prices and the quantity and quality of alternative routes and modes available to local drivers. From these candidate explanatory variables, we were able to construct a simple predictive model that can be used to provide ‘first cut’ estimates of the likely traffic response to toll charging under different circumstances.”
MassDOT Substantially Completes Sumner Tunnel Project Ahead Of Schedule
On Monday, Massachusetts DOT declared its $160 million Sumner Tunnel restoration project “substantially complete” and announced that further periodic closures will not be required. The department stated all remaining work can be completed during off-peak hours.
Last week saw the end of full weekend work closures that were initially expected to continue into November. MassDOT highway administrator Jonathan Gulliver commented, “We are thrilled that we have been able to deliver this project ahead of schedule. I want to thank our [lead] contractor, JF White, who worked tirelessly with our team at MassDOT to find ways to accelerate this important work. I also want to thank the travelling public and residents for their patience and support during this important project.”
Started in 2022, the rehabilitation effort aimed to extend the 90-year-old tunnel’s useful life by at least 75 years. Work was so extensive that it required two lengthy summertime closures — they created major metro Boston mobility problems — as well as 59 full-weekend closures. Among other things, contractors removed a suspended ceiling and installed more than 700 precast concrete arches and new fireproof wallboard throughout the facility. The roadway, curbing, and drain inlet were completely restored, and light fixtures, conduits and cables were replaced. (TRN inserted a link in quoted text.)
The Boston Globe covers this story.
A Learning Curve And Unfamiliar Collaborators Slow NEVI Program’s Rollout
POLITICO’s E&E News provides an in-depth look at why the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program’s electric vehicle (EV) charger buildout is progressing so slowly, to the frustration of agency officials and lawmakers from both parties. The program was authorized in 2021 under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). To date, only 19 NEVI-funded charging stations have come online in nine states, according to the federal government’s Joint Office of Energy and Transportation. However, that agency’s executive director, Gabe Klein, predicts that the pace of installations will increase and the program’s impact will peak between 2026 and 2028.
The E&E News article is largely informed by a panel discussion at last month’s EV Charging Infrastructure National Conference in Detroit, co-hosted by the National Association of State Energy Officials, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation. The range of conference participants explains one of the difficulties with the program’s implementation: “It requires collaborations between the worlds of energy and transportation that are newly minted.” State DOT’s, the drivers of program implementation, are unaccustomed to working with energy companies and utilities on projects “intimately tied to the electric grid, or on private property.”
Two other drags on progress are highlighted in the article. One is the inevitable complexity of managing a program with multiple stakeholders, including federal and state agencies, private host businesses, landowners, electric companies, and charging-network providers. The other, “the single biggest bottleneck in building a charging station is getting the electric utility to build the necessary interconnections to supply at least 600 kilowatts of power, the minimum necessary for a NEVI station.” The program’s challenges for power providers are significant and not easily overcome.