Free Republic

A subsea tunnel across the Strait of Belle Isle is back in conversation once again after a report was tabled this month in Ottawa. The federal government’s standing committee on transport, infrastructure, and communities is now calling on the federal government to work with the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec, as well, as the private sector, to build a fixed link across the Strait of Belle Isle and complete Route 138 along the Quebec Lower North Shore. The tunnel would link Point Amour in Labrador to Yankee Point on the Great Northern Peninsula in Newfoundland. The project would...

In late April, President Trump and Democratic congressional leaders finally found something they agreed on: infrastructure. Outside the White House after a meeting with the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat, issued the pronouncement, “Big and bold.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the Democrat from New York, echoed the takeaway: “We agreed on a number, which was very, very good, $2 trillion.” Trump himself has been publicly quiet but didn’t dispute that he told the Democrats he “like[s] the number.” By May, this renewed spirit of cooperation had fallen apart, at least temporarily, with a second meeting collapsing...

The small industrial buildings and blighted homes that once dotted the landscape of Detroit's Delray neighborhood are gone for good as demolition and site-cleaning work for the Gordie Howe International Bridge is in full swing this summer. The long-anticipated bridge construction project is starting to take shape on the Michigan side of the Detroit River, as cranes have been working along the riverfront in recent weeks. The cranes were drilling test shafts into the ground that will determine the final design of the new span and its towers rivaling Detroit's 73-story Renaissance Center, said Aaron Epstein, CEO of Bridging North...

SEATTLE -- The double-deck Alaskan Way Viaduct spells disaster in the event of a massive earthquake in Seattle. It's a warning that played out in real life in Oakland, Calif., 30 years ago. The Cyprus Street Viaduct Collapse killed 42 people during the Loma Prieta Earthquake. The stark similarities between that and our own viaduct in Seattle had experts sounding the alarm back then. Then in 2001, the Nisqually Earthquake hit at a 6.8 magnitude. "In 2001, during the Nisqually quake, the Alaskan Way Viaduct was damaged on the north end of the Alaskan Way Viaduct," said tunnel expert Red...

Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger celebrated when the California Transportation Commission voted, despite a host of warnings, to pay a contractor more than $1 billion to build two tunnels and a stretch of road outside San Francisco nine years ago. Schwarzenegger said the project’s new approach, which aimed to cap public expenses and shift responsibility to the private sector, would serve as a “shining example” of an innovative way to improve the state’s highways while saving taxpayer dollars. Now the project, known as the Presidio Parkway, is more than two years late and $208 million over budget. When the commission approved...

A public interest advocacy group has identified the country’s “most wasteful and pointless” transportation projects, which are costing taxpayers $25 billion. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) cites among “the biggest boondoggles” a $2.2 billion widening of Interstate 81 in Virginia, a $7 billion interstate project in Houston and a $802 million “Connecting Miami” redesign of city highways. According to PIRG, widening highways to reduce gridlock fails for several reasons. Multiple studies show that more road space over time leads to further congestion because of a phenomenon called “induced demand.” “We’re stuck in a car-centric rut in the United...

Cash-strapped Connecticut is grappling with how to pay for transportation investments to prevent more than half of its roads and highways from falling into disrepair in the next decade. The answer, according to Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration, is highway tolls. Like most states in the Northeast, Connecticut previously used highway tolls to raise revenue. The state removed all tolls in the 1980s following a crash at a toll plaza that killed seven people. Now Mr. Lamont, a Democrat, is attempting to persuade a skeptical state Legislature to bring them back. Lawmakers declined to vote on tolls during this year’s legislative...

A dedicated route for wildlife migration has been built in the newly constructed national road between Fuyun county and Wucaiwan in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Crossing the Junggar Basin, the 216 national highway is expected to be put into operation on August 1. The project was launched in 2017, with environmental protection made the top priority. The bridge is 100 meters long, 50 meters wide and 6 meters high. There are several culverts along the highway designed for wild animal migration. In order to fit in with the surrounding environment, the passage is covered by a layer of...

Ground was broken this month on an anxiously awaited highway project outside of Washington, D.C., one of the latest examples of the public and private sector acting as partners to advance critical state and local infrastructure projects. The June 6 launch of the Fredericksburg Extension Project – a 10-mile extension of express toll lanes on the Interstate 95 corridor in Northern Virginia nicknamed the “FredEx” – featured the leadership of a public-private partnership (P3) that will get the $565 million job done by the end of 2022. The state’s governor and its transportation secretary launched the project as the public...

Are tolls going to be enforced on private drivers? The German government, along with every car owner in the European Union, will finally get a definitive answer to that question on Tuesday. If the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rules in favor of the tolls, all motorists will be charged to drive on German highways. The fees, known as "vignettes," are to be collected according to the time traveled on the autobahn. For cars registered in Germany, however, owners will get a credit deductible from the motor vehicle tax as compensation, meaning the costs would be offset, and ultimately, Germans...

Marin transportation officials were cautiously optimistic Monday after a recent court ruling upheld a major funding source for several local highway projects, but the funding could be in limbo because of appeals. “We have tremendous congestion and these projects are congestion relievers,” said Dianne Steinhauser, executive director of the Transportation Authority of Marin. “We hear from the public constantly about how bad the congestion is right now. We’re hoping that this money starts flowing. It’d be great to see it by the end of 2019.” Regional Measure 3, the June 2018 ballot measure that increases tolls for seven Bay Area...

ORLANDO, Fla.—The state dubbed it the I-4 Ultimate for its grand scope. For some here, it’s more like the ultimate headache. A reconstruction of 21 miles of congested interstate highway through the heart of Orlando will build or rebuild 140 bridges, redesign 15 interchanges, move exits and add new toll lanes, in a $2.3 billion project to smooth traffic through one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities. Dense cities have grown up around the aging freeways, hemming them in so that expensive engineering feats are needed to do work on them. Yet work is often unavoidable. I-4, for instance, was built...

Just last week, House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz dismissed toll opponents as “emotional.” He claimed that they cling unthinkingly to “perceived details” such as that the number of gantries remain unfixed and the amount of revenue actually to be obtained from out-of-staters remains not only undetermined, but undeterminable. He did not mention, but could have, opponents’ continuing concerns about the eventual rate of tolls; about whether a state-wide, shared-sacrifice tolling structure will be authorized by the U.S. D.O.T. as promised, and what happens if it isn’t; and how much gross revenue from tolling will be eaten up by costs, which have...

America's interstate highway system, launched more than 60 years ago, now carries far more vehicles than it was originally built for and is in dire need of repairs and improvements. The U.S. has "taken a generation off" from investing in infrastructure, says Brian Pallasch, director of government relations at the American Society of Civil Engineers. And with Americans driving more than ever before, that's leading to problems like frustration-inducing congestion and costly car repair bills. "The roadways that we drive on every day put quite a toll on our vehicles," Pallasch tells Here & Now. "The average driver ... faces...

Maryland’s Board of Public Works approved the state’s use of private companies to widen highways in the Washington suburbs, but agreed to delay work on the Capital Beltway after running into opposition. The vote came during a lengthy and tense meeting Wednesday on Gov. Larry Hogan’s plan to enlist the private sector to widen the Capital Beltway and Interstate 270. The private contractors would recoup their investment through tolls charged on drivers who use the new lanes. The Hogan administration has sold the plan — known as a “public-private partnership” or P3 — as a way to alleviate traffic congestion...

A date for at least a bit of congestion relief has been set for commuters on I-405 between Bothell and Lynnwood. During the last session, state legislators approved the bonding of I-405 toll revenue, allowing the build-out of at least one highway project to begin sooner. Construction to widen I-405 between highways 522 and 527, which will add another express toll lane in each direction, will now start by 2021, according to Craig Smiley, a spokesperson for the Washington State Department of Transportation. The project also includes building direct access ramps from Highway 522 onto the express toll lanes, and...

The U.S. Interstate Highway System is the backbone of American commerce and personal travel. Funded on a pay-as-you-go basis largely through federal excise taxes on motor fuel, today it accounts for 25% of total vehicle-miles traveled despite accounting for just 2.5% of total road network lane-miles. Yet, much of the Interstate system, construction of which began in the 1950s, is nearing the end of its functional life, along with the infrastructure of other surface transportation modes. Over the next two decades, trillions of dollars of investment will be needed to rehabilitate and in some cases rebuild this infrastructure, according to...

Thirteen middle-school-age girls are spending the week learning valuable skills as a precursor to possible careers in the construction industry. The group will build and wire their own lamps, pour concrete and build a free library stand over the course of the week in a bid from the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) to recruit more girls into the industry early. "There's just not a lot of talk about what opportunities are out there, and that's kind of our goal is to show the kids what else there could be," said Jordan Moore, a specialist at plumbing supplier...

ORLANDO, Fla. - Imagine not being able to pay cash for some of the toll roads you use every day. It's already happened in and around Miami and near Tampa, but now it is going to be happening in Central Florida. The Florida Turnpike Enterprise confirmed that all Florida's Turnpike roadways are going to all-electronic tolling in a 70-mile stretch from Osceola County to Sumter County by next summer. According to FTE, the project will take place on Florida's Turnpike from Kissimmee Park Road at milepost 239 to I-75, which is at milepost 309. "They're going to continue on the...

Despite pleas from two former state governors and at least 90 environmental and community groups and businesses, Gov. Ron DeDantis on Friday signed a multibillion-dollar plan to build long stretches of toll roads across undeveloped sections of the state. The legislation has been labeled “the worst environmental bill in twenty years.” And the Florida Sierra Club has warned of pristine areas becoming urban sprawl, where “subdivisions and strip malls will proliferate and the natural resources that bring visitors to the state will be overused and overrun.” DeSantis approved the bill anyway. The announcement came not from the governor’s press office...