SandBoxBlogs: Summit Daily News "Contractor's plan for I-70 would require ‘little or no' public funding"

Caddie Nath:
"Toll lanes could be part of I-70's future if one private contractor's plan gets implemented.

Eight months after the private firm Parsons submitted an unsolicited and undisclosed proposal for a project to improve Interstate 70, details of the plan — including new toll lanes and a transit system — are coming to light.

The proposal, presented to the Colorado Department of Transportation in July, indicates the project could generate enough money that little or no state or federal money would be needed to implement it, according to a statement from CDOT.

CDOT reached out to other firms today, asking for statements of interest in submitting competing proposals in the future.

“Through our process, when we receive an unsolicited proposal, we have to go out for comparable proposals,” CDOT spokeswoman Stacey Stegman said. “We're looking at qualified firms to see who would propose to make sure there's interest.”

CDOT has kept the details of the Parsons proposal quiet, saying the specifics are proprietary and can't be made known to the company's competitors.

But with the request for statements of interest today, CDOT released a blueprint of the Parsons proposal, a phased plan which would implement “managed” or toll lanes that would be priced to correspond to the level of congestion. The current lanes on I-70 would remain free, according to the statement.

The plan calls for improvements to be implemented first between C-470 and Silverthorne and later extended all the way to Eagle..."  (Read more?  Click title)

"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."

SandBoxBlogs: Summit County Citizens Voice "Colorado: Private investment sought for I-70"

Bob Berwyn:
"SUMMIT COUNTY — A semi-secret and unsolicited proposal for I-70 improvements from a private company is garnering more attention these days, as state, local and federal officials come to grips with the fact that there just isn’t going to be much public money available for critical infrastructure investment.

At a meeting Friday (March 9) in Summit County, a collaborative I-70 planning group heard a few more details on a possible public-private partnership, and Colorado Department of Transportation officials said they will pursue the approach in a two-phase process, first by issuing a request for statements of interest, then following up with a more formal request for proposals.

At this point, the state transportation agency already has one such proposal in hand, which includes “a list of improvements that could generate enough revenue to the point that you could bond against it,” CDOT region 1 director Tony DeVito said after the meeting....."  (Read more?  Click title)

"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."