Harvey Cripples Transportation Systems for Large Region, With National Impact
Hurricane Harvey's devastation in Texas and other areas brought transportation systems to a standstill for days, and promised to leave a growing toll as infrastructure damages can be counted when flood waters recede. The killer storm also left a growing toll on the people in its path, with at least 47 reported dead by the morning of Sept. 1, tens of thousands housed in shelters – especially in Houston – and an undetermined number of homes and businesses destroyed or damaged. It also left o...
Automatic Emergency Relief from FTA Regulatory Requirements Applicable to Hurricane Harvey Response and Recovery
Transit agencies may take actions, such as providing service for evacuations, returning evacuees from shelters to their homes, transporting utility workers, and providing service to shelter residents, as long as these actions are directly related to Hurricane Harvey, without triggering the charter rule. Transit agencies may provide such services for up to 45 days from a declaration of emergency by the President, governor or mayor. For Texas, the Presidential declaration of emergency began on Au...
FTA Announces Program for Cooperative Purchases of Transit Vehicles and Equipment
FTA Announces Program for Cooperative Purchases of Transit Vehicles and Equipment. The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) announced last week the Pilot Program for Nonprofit Cooperative Procurements and is accepting expressions of interest from eligible nonprofit entities to participate. An announcement appeared in the Federal Register last week and includes program eligibility requirements and criteria FTA will use to select nonprofit entities to participate. The pilot program aims to demonst...
Savannah Serves Largest Vessel Ever to Call on East Coast
Savannah, Ga. - The CMA CGM Theodore Roosevelt, the largest container ship ever to serve the U.S. East Coast at 14,414 twenty-foot equivalent container units (TEUs), called the Port of Savannah today. Working the vessel with seven cranes at the 1,200-acre Garden City Terminal, the Port of Savannah is expected to move 4,500 containers (approximately 8,000 TEUs) on and off the ship. The GPA will work six other vessels simultaneous to the Roosevelt. "Not only do these massive ships play to Sa...
U.S. Driving Increases for Sixth Straight Year, New Federal Data Show
WASHINGTON – New data released today by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) show that U.S. driving topped 1.58 trillion miles in the first six months of 2017 – or more than 8,500 roundtrips from Earth to the Sun – continuing a streak of steadily increasing vehicle miles travelled (VMT) that began in 2011. The new data, published in FHWA’s latest “Traffic Volume Trends” report – a monthly estimate of U.S. road travel – show that more than 280.9...
Fluor-led Joint Venture Breaks Ground on Maryland Purple Line
IRVING, Texas – Fluor Corporation (NYSE: FLR) announced today that the Purple Line Transit Partners joint venture team, comprised of Fluor, Meridiam Infrastructure Purple Line, LLC, and Star America Purple Line, LLC, broke ground on the Purple Line Light Rail project for the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) and the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA). The groundbreaking was capped off with the signing of the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Transit Administration’s...
Cortec MCI-309 Protects Post-Tension Strands During Construction of New St. Croix River Crossing
The St. Croix Crossing, dedicated August 2nd, 2017, is a significant new structure connecting Oak Park Heights, Minnesota, with St. Joseph, Wisconsin. The new bridge is expected to promote regional economic development and reduce congestion by replacing the historic but aging Stillwater Lift Bridge (destined for pedestrian traffic) with an engineering masterpiece. The new St. Croix Crossing is designed to carry tens of thousands of vehicles in uninhibited travel across the St. Croix National Sce...
High-Speed Amtrak Service from Chicago to St. Louis Will Shave Hour Off Trip
High-speed Amtrak rail trains powered by new locomotives should start whizzing between Chicago and St. Louis sometime in 2018, officials said Monday. The trains will travel at top speeds of 110 mph, which doesn't match the 200-plus mph levels of trains in Europe and Japan, but should reduce trip times from 5½ to 4½ hours, IDOT and Amtrak executives explained. With the modernization, customers will "have smoother rides, upgraded stations, crossing and signal improvements for safety, (and) guara...
Judges Pick ‘Top 12’ List of State DOT Projects to Compete for Best in America
A "Top 12" group of infrastructure projects that state departments of transportation completed last year are competing as finalists for two national prized in then 2017 "America's Transportation Awards." That competition – sponsored by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, the AAA motor club and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – spotlights excellence in projects that improve safety and mobility for the traveling public and improve the flow of commerce. The t...
New Destinations Available in the Lehigh Valley
WASHINGTON – Amtrak now provides expanded Thruway bus service between New York City and Philadelphia to destinations throughout the Lehigh Valley and southern Pennsylvania. Customers now have more convenient and affordable travel options from more than a dozen new locations including Kutztown, Allentown, Quakertown, Bethlehem and to Philadelphia 30th Street Station. Bieber Tourways, an intercity motor coach operator based in Pennsylvania, provides transportation throughout Pennsylvania and to...
Stormwater Interview with Robert Page, P.E., Vice President, HNTB
TriMet’s Banfield Type 1 Substation Replacement Project
February Issue 2026
