Daily News Briefs, December 6, 2016

RIDOT RFP Provides Truck Tolling Timeline. State Aims to Award AET Contract This Spring.

The Providence Journal reports, “The Rhode Island Department of Transportation aims to establish two tolling facilities on Route 95 within six months of awarding the job of setting up an electronic system for tolling trucks to a private company. The state hopes to award the contract in the spring, DOT’s director, Peter Alviti, said [December 5] when he announced DOT’s solicitation of proposals for the design, construction, operation and maintenance of 13 tolling facilities.”[Link added.] The report adds, “The company that receives the contract to build the system will also run the system and turn over toll revenues to the Rhode Island Turnpike and Bridge Authority, Alviti said. The construction of all tolling facilities will take about 18 months and reach completion by the end of 2018.”

Click here to read the RFP (Bid #7551188) cover sheet.

Go here to download the RFP exhibits, attachments and forms.

Top

Governor Raimondo's RhodeWorks Plan Earns Story of the Year Award. (Truckers, Jill Stein Demand Vote Recount.)

The Providence Journal reports, “Gov. Gina Raimondo’s controversial plan to modernize Rhode Island’s aging state roads and bridges, partly by imposing tolls on trucks, has been voted the 2016 Pell Center Rhode Island Story of the Year.” (The center, part of Newport’s Salve Regina University, is a politics and public policy research institution.)

Top

Ohio River Bridges Official Kerry Stemler Earns Praise and Lumps for Approving, Defending Tolls

News and Tribune (Jeffersonville, IN) features a column profiling Kerry Stemler — trucking and construction company executive; member of the Indiana Finance Authority and the ORB Tolling Body; and co-chair of the bi-state Ohio River Bridges authority. “Stemler not only helped approve tolls. He led their defense. His was the face routinely on the TV news. His were the explanations in the newspapers. Stemler agreed to that role. He took a semi-load of lumps for it.” According to columnist Dale Moss, “Stemler counts on what is lost to tolls being gained, and then some, by job growth and shorter commutes. New bridges breathe new life into the region like nothing else could. However painful, Stemler asks we consider tolls a necessary cost. ‘The idea was to create an economic outcome we’re experiencing today,’ he said.”

Top

Can Orange County's Three Toll Roads Provide a Blueprint for the Trump Plan?

The Orange County Register features a Jonathan Lansner column on the putative Trump infrastructure plan that includes “six lessons worth sharing” from Orange County’s experience. “We’ve got three toll roads — 91 Express Lanes, the 133/241/261 Foothill/Eastern and the 73 San Joaquin — that seem to fit the rough concept loosely discussed by Trump and some of his inner circle,” Lansner writes. “All three local tolls roads were debt-financed projects in which public transportation options were added with relatively non-traditional construction and operational arrangements between private builders and government transportation agencies.” He adds, “Trump’s idea could be quickly up and running, assuming there’s congressional will to buy in and legitimate projects to build. It’s a comparatively simple formula for roads: plan, borrow money, build . . . then repay the debts with toll collections. At the core, it’s user financed.”

Top

Fitch Ratings Says Outlook for US Transportation Infrastructure is Stable, Despite Uncertainties

Fitch Ratings announced, “The outlook is stable for U.S. transportation infrastructure headed into next year, though the sector is not without its uncertainties, part of which stem from the new Presidential administration’s plans for infrastructure, according to Fitch Ratings in its 2017 outlook report.” Fitch notes, “Low gas prices will buoy toll roads in particular, with Fitch projecting moderate traffic growth in 2017. Growth is also in the cards for U.S. airports. . . .” Click here to download a copy of Fitch’s report.

Top

Tappan Zee Bridge Project Clears Milestones with $2.2 Billion Spent or Committed to Date

Times Herald-Record reports, “Construction of the new Tappan Zee Bridge continues to pass milestones as the $3.9 billion project begins its fourth year. ‘There’s a lot of good progress,’ said Jamey Barbas [link added], the New York State Thruway Authority’s project director, in one of her periodic reports to the board [on December 5]. Barbas said the eight, 419-foot signature towers that dominate the bridge’s main span — the ‘superstructure’ — will be completed within weeks and the construction forms that have partially enclosed them removed.” Authority staffer Dan Marcy “reported that Tappan Zee Constructors has spent or committed $2.26 billion to date. Some $1 billion has gone to 1,697 subcontractors, $807 million for construction materials and $453 million for indirect expenses such as insurance. Of the subcontractors, 729 are based in New York state, including 207 in Westchester County, 69 in New York City, 95 in Rockland and 41 in Orange.”

Top

WI Assembly Speaker Takes an Ambulance Ride to Drive Attention to Transportation Funding Needs

The Journal Times reports, “Assembly Speaker Robin Vos filmed an ambulance ride [link added] around Racine County to show the need for road repairs, as the debate over roads funding begins in earnest. Vos, R-Rochester, released the video [yesterday, December 5], a day before the state Assembly was scheduled to hold a hearing on the Department of Transportation’s budget request. Vos has pushed for what he describes as an ‘all-of-the-above’ approach to paying for roads, including raising new revenue [via highway tolls, among other methods]. But others in his party, most notably Gov. Scott Walker, have resisted raising taxes or fees.”

Top

A 10-Cents-Per-Ride Promotional for LBJ and NTE TEXpress Lanes

Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports, “If you have been avoiding the North Texas toll lanes because you believe they’re expensive, there is a way to try them out for pocket change. Motorists can pick a day in December to use the so-called TEXPress lanes in Tarrant and Dallas counties for just 10 cents per transaction, as part of a holiday promotion.” A motorist must have a TollTag to qualify for the offer.

Top

NY State Thruway Chair Appoints New Director of Maintenance and Operations

Syracuse.com reports, “Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney, who is also chair of the New York State Thruway Authority, appointed the county’s transportation commissioner, Brian Donnelly, to director of maintenance and operations for the Thruway.” The report adds, “The appointment of Donnelly to the Thruway job gives Onondaga County yet another foothold with the Albany authority that dictates the statewide route. Former County Attorney Gordon Cuffy was made general counsel for the Thruway last year around the same time Mahoney was named board chairwoman.”

Top

MDX Cash Back Program Delivers $5.5 Million to Frequent Customers

Miami’s Community Newspapers runs an MDX news release announcing that the MDX Cash Back Program “will distribute cash back checks in December totaling $5.5 million, which means loyal customers who frequently traveled on MDX expressways can expect a check for about $100.” The news release adds, “After MDX meets its financial objectives, including debt repayment and operations and maintenance costs, the agency chooses to return the savings from its operational efficiencies to customers who pay more than $100 a year in tolls on MDX expressways.”

Top

KTA's $3.7 Million Project to Raise Overpasses, Lure More Truck Traffic Advances

The Kansas City Star reports on the progress of a KTA’s $3.7 million project to raise the elevation of ten overpasses that cross Interstate 35. The structures date from 1956, and the authority hopes to attract more commercial truck traffic by increasing their clearance levels. KTA has plans to raise other turnpike overpasses. Communications director Rachel Bell tells the newspaper, “On the north end between Kansas City and Topeka, we’ll be implementing open-road tolling over the next few years, and we’ll incorporate the bridge lifts with that.”

Top

KTA Makes Quick Work of Taking Down Bridge

KSN reports, “The Kansas Turnpike Authority released a video [link added] showing just how fast the Kansas Turnpike Authority bridge came down this weekend” as part of the agency’s East Kellogg improvement project. “The demolition was scheduled to last two days, but crews were able to finish the job 36 hours in advance of the original schedule.”

Top

Mackinac Bridge Authority to Allow Vintage Snowmobiles to Cross Bridge for Tourism Event

MLive.com reports, “Snowmobile enthusiasts will soon have the opportunity to do something that’s never been done before. The Top of the Lake Snowmobile Museum in Naubinway and the St. Ignace Visitor’s Bureau are teaming up to host an event in which vintage snowmobiles can be driven across the Mackinac Bridge for the first time.” Mlive.com adds, “Driving snowmobiles across the Mackinac Bridge is prohibited. The Mackinac Bridge Authority has long provided a service to transport snowmobiles across the bridge via trailer, but self-manned machines have never crossed the bridge.”

Top

USDOT Awards Carnegie Mellon a $14 Million Mobility21 Grant (Autonomous Vehicles, Data Modeling for Traffic Cited)

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports, “Carnegie Mellon University announced [yesterday, December 5] it has received a $14 million federal grant to establish a new National University Transportation Center.” The grant will fund work “to develop smart city technologies; connected and autonomous vehicles; improved transportation access to disadvantaged neighborhoods; multi-modal traveling; assistive technologies for people with disabilities; data modeling for monitoring traffic control systems; and regional planning to establish priorities and aid transportation deployment,” according to the report. Click here to get more information from the university’s news release.

Top

Toll "Runners" Help to Smooth Out Traffic at India's Chaotic Toll Plazas

The Indian Express (Mumbai) reports, “Traffic movement at the toll collection points in the city was comparatively smoother Monday [December 5] after toll runners were deployed, accelerating the pace of handing commuters change and toll receipts. The toll runners, armed with PoS machines and deployed along the lanes leading up to the toll gates, have been appointed by the MEP Infrastructure, contracted to collect toll tax.” [Link added.]

Top