March 24th | Business News Americas
Colombia's national roads authority Invías has an investment budget of 2.01tn pesos (US$1.08bn) for 2011, according to its technical secretary-general, Holbert Corredor.
The authority's investment plan for this year includes 649bn pesos for its Arteriales de Competitividad (corridors for competitiveness) program, Corredor said during a presentation at the BNamericas Andean Infrastructure Summit.
The program, which will cost a total 2.8tn pesos, includes 19 highways spanning some 1,500km, and aims to connect the country's main productive centers with ports and border areas.
Invías will allocate 306bn pesos to its Caminos para la Prosperidad (roads for prosperity) program, which involves improvements and maintenance on 50,000km of the country's tertiary road network.
"This [program] is very important because of its social aspect, as it will generate a large amount of jobs. It's one of the flagship projects of this administration," Corredor said.
The authority will also spend 341bn pesos on general road maintenance and 45bn pesos on the construction and repair of bridges.
At end-2009, Invías was in charge of a 12,743km network of public roads. Another 4,025km are managed by the private sector.
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March 24th | Railway Gazette
USA: A further grant of $1·2bn in federal funding has been released for high speed rail development on the Chicago – St Louis corridor in Illinois, where work is underway to upgrade the existing Union Pacific line for 177 km/h running.
The previously-negotiated award was confirmed in Chicago on March 22, when the state’s Governor Pat Quinn and US Senator Dick Durbin, hosted an event to announce the start of work on the next $685m phase of the upgrading programme, which is scheduled to begin on April 5. ‘Illinois has always been a strong railroad state and we always will be’, Quinn told the Chicago Tribune.
Upgrading of the 457 km Chicago – St Louis route is expected to cut the end-to-end journey time by 90 min to under 4 h. As well as the $1·2bn in federal funding, the state has agreed to contribute a further $42m.
Last September Quinn and Durbin initiated work on a $98m upgrading of the 145 km between Alton and Lincoln at the southern end of the corridor, ‘making Illinois the first state to break ground under the federal initiative to develop a Midwest high-speed rail network’.
The work starting in April will see the Dwight – Lincoln and Alton – St Louis sections relaid with concrete sleepers. Signalling on the Dwight – Alton section will also be modernised. The federally-funded work will be managed by UP, and is expected to generate more than 6 000 direct and indirect jobs. The work is due for completion in 2014, but trains could begin running at 177 km/h between Dwight and Pontia
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March 25th | Sustainable Business
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and World Bank President Robert Zoellick signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Tuesday to collaborate in assisting developing countries’ efforts in water security and water quality.
In recognition of World Water Day, Clinton signed the MOU on behalf of 17 federal government agencies, marking what is said to be the largest-ever alliance of U.S. government agencies with those of the World Bank Group.
The partnership involves federal departments and agencies such as NASA, which will share remote-sensing technology that enables countries to identify and measure their water resources, so as to guide strategies to manage them sustainably.
The agencies are expected to contribute intellectual capital and technical expertise in the following areas:
providing information and expert advice to help manage water resources effectively
facilitating reliable, sustainable access to water to meet human needs, support livelihoods and protect ecosystems
supporting water, sanitation and hygiene to prevent disease
predicting drought and floods
rehabilitating watersheds and wetlands
improving water use and irrigation practices
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March 18th | Lexology
It is spring in Pennsylvania, when thoughts turn to warmer weather, the start of baseball season and public-private partnership (P3) legislation in Harrisburg. Right on schedule, under the leadership of Transportation Committee Chair Rick Geist, the Pennsylvania House Transportation Committee reported out House Bill 3, which, like its Senate counterpart Senate Bill 344, accomplishes three goals not previously addressed by P3 legislation in Pennsylvania.
Most importantly, both bills present a streamlined procurement process to be followed for all transportation P3s – even unsolicited proposals. Earlier bills tried to put such a mechanism in place while P3 procurements were being undertaken – adding an unacceptable level of risk for prospective bidders. Second, both bills articulate the public policies to be served by P3s and ensure that those concerns are not omitted during negotiations with bidders and their bankers. For example, there is a requirement that existing employees in good standing with any transportation facility to be privatized must be employed by the development entity with the same wages and benefits they enjoyed prior to the privatization. In addition, there is a strong diversity requirement for successful bidders. Finally, H.B. 3 establishes a seven-member Public-Private Transportation Partnership Board (the Board) with the authority to evaluate and approve P3 proposals. Four members of the Board are selected by the Legislature and three by the Governor.
Clear Authority To Toll
Before the House votes on this measure and the Senate Transportation Committee considers its version of P3 legislation, there are five potholes in the road to transportation P3s in Pennsylvania that must be filled to make these agreements workable for P3 investors and protective of the public policies the Legislature holds dear. First, the Board must have clear authority under state law to designate roads – whether new or existing – as toll roads. Without the ability to designate a toll road, a P3 must return to the Legislature for approval, defeating a primary purpose of having P3 legislation in place. This omission leaves the Board with no mechanism for increasing the revenue available for transportation in the Commonwealth – revenue that can be leveraged through a P3.
Keeping Toll Revenue in the Region
A second pothole is the failure of H.B. 3 to allow money raised through regional tolling to stay in the region. Projects like the 422 Corridor Improvement Program rely on tolls being levied on a state road passing through several counties. If that region is not guaranteed sufficient revenue to operate and maintain the toll road and make necessary improvements to handle diversion – but instead is simply sending toll revenue to PennDOT for its 12-Year Improvement Plan – there is no incentive for the communities to host the toll road. H.B. 3 requires all toll revenues to be deposited in a public-private transportation account of the Motor License Fund under PennDOT’s control, which is constitutionally required to be spent for transportation purposes. While PennDOT should deposit its portion of any P3 payments into the account, the regional tolling authority or propriety public entity should be able to spend its portion of the toll revenue consistent with its statutory purposes.
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March 24th | Chicago Sun Times
Mayor Daley’s plan to issue $1 billion in bonds — retired by airline ticket taxes and other airport revenues — to build a new south runway and other projects at O’Hare Airport has finally been cleared for take-off.
One week after city concessions and $155 million in new federal funds got Daley’s signature project back on track, City Hall declared its intention to proceed with the massive borrowing that had been stalled by an unprecedented lawsuit filed by United and American Airlines.
The Daley administration now plans to issue $1 billion in general airport revenue bonds during the week of April 18 to finance: a far south runway originally scheduled to be completed last; a new south air traffic control tower; completion of a center runway that includes a disputed cemetery; relocation of Irving Park Road; and a series of taxiways and facility buildings.
Another $51 million in bonds will be retired by the so-called “passenger facility charge” tacked on to airline tickets.
“We must continue to invest in our airport infrastructure. These bonds will provide important financing for continuing our key construction projects at O’Hare,” Chief Financial Officer Gene Saffold said in a press release.
Aviation Commissioner Rosemarie Andolino called the massive runway expansion project that had virtually ground to a halt the nation’s “largest civil construction project.
“This financing helps us continue to move forward … to secure Chicago’s leading position in the global aviation system,” she said.
Both bond issues were approved by the City Council last fall, only to be stuck in a holding pattern after United and American filed a lawsuit they have now agreed to drop.
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