The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) this week announced the selection of Bridging Pennsylvania Partners (BPP) to administer the Major Bridge Public-Private Partnership (P3) initiative.
BPP is made up of the following firms, six of which are headquartered in Pennsylvania: Macquarie Infrastructure Developments LLC; Shikun & Binui Concessions USA Inc.; STV Inc. (Douglassville); FCC Construccion, S.A.; Shikun & Binui – America Inc. (Pittsburgh); SAI Consulting Engineers Inc.(Lemoyne); Wagman Heavy Civil Inc. (York); Joseph B. Fay Company (Pittsburgh); and H&K Group Inc. (Skippack).
"I am proud that we have reached this critical milestone," PennDOT Secretary Yassmin Gramian said in a statement. "Selecting a team brings us one step closer to delivering these important improvements to our infrastructure."
Under the Major Bridge P3 initiative, BPP will repair or replace up to nine bridges across the state. According to a PennDOT news release, the initiative includes the rehabilitation or replacement of select bridges—grouped in packages—and all associated infrastructure investments associated with that specific bridge, including roadway and approach work, improvements to nearby impacted roadways, and associated tolling infrastructure, such as gantry structures and toll buildings for each bridge.
The goal of the P3 initiative is to raise revenue through tolling to address the state's growing backlog of major bridge replacement and rehabilitation needs. PennDOT says bridge tolling can provide the funds to repair or replace these costly bridges without using PennDOT's current funding, which in turn allows those funds to be used for other roadway maintenance, operations, and improvements.
PennDOT says the first package of bridges, which will include only bridges that have completed the environmental process, is scheduled to be under contract by December 2022, at which time final design will begin, with construction expected to begin between fall 2023 and spring 2024.
The Pennsylvania P3 Board approved the Major Bridge P3 Initiative in November 2020. BPP was one of three teams invited last fall to submit proposals to PennDOT to administer the P3 initiative.
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SOURCE: Pennsylvania DOT
