Dive Brief:
- Infrastructure Ontario has released additional details for the $616 million Highway 427 project in Toronto, according to Daily Commercial News.
- The fixed-price contract for the project will see the Link 427 consortium design, finance, build, operate and maintain the highway extension, and the contract amount includes payments during construction, a payment upon substantial completion and monthly service compensation.
- Link 427 is now working on the design, with construction scheduled to start later this year. The project is slated for completion in 2021.
Dive Insight:
Public-private partnerships — in which the private company is responsible for long-term maintenance and operation of the project — are becoming a more popular choice for infrastructure projects from highways to rail lines.
While Canada was an early adopter of this delivery method, its use in the U.S. is on the rise as public entities try to leverage their limited capital budgets and delegate the risk and responsibility of designing, building and maintaining assets to the private sector. There is motivation for private companies to come up with more efficient design and perform higher quality work, as they will be the ones maintaining it for decades.
Earlier this month, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced that the state will enter into a $460 million P3 with Australian company Transurban to install more high-occupancy toll lanes on a portion of Interstate 395, a heavily traveled route between Alexandria, VA, and DC, as well as add additional and reversible lanes.
McAuliffe also told taxpayers last year that the state would engage a Ferrovial-led joint venture on a separate 50-year, high-occupancy toll project under a P3 agreement that would save them $2.5 billion.
The Florida Department of Transportation also has a $2.3 billion P3 contract with a Skanska USA-led consortium, I-4 Mobility Partners, on a 21-mile expansion and overhaul of Interstate 4 through Orlando. As part of the deal, I-4 Mobility Partners will operate and maintain the toll portion for 40 years.