Administration
and Finance
Award
WINNER:
Transurban North
America (North
Virginia)
The 87th IBTTA Annual
Meeting takes place in
Halifax, Nova Scotia on
September 15-17 2019, with
Halifax Harbour Bridges (HHB)
acting as hosts. A maritime city of
just over 400,000, Halifax abuts
the wild Atlantic at Canada’s
eastern extremity. Since the
Harbour cuts deep inland, two
suspension bridges provide vital
Washington, DC was recently ranked
among Earth’s 20 worst-congested
cities and the capital’s commuters
spend 155 hours stuck in traffic
annually, a day longer than their
New York counterparts. The new,
eight-mile 395 Express Lanes will
convert and expand existing I-395
HOV lanes between DC and
Springfield, Virginia, improving
travel-times to the Pentagon and
Amazon’s future Crystal City
headquarters.
The lanes will connect parallel
expansions into a 63-mile managedlane
network, easing congestion and
enabling transit incentives.
Transurban utilized a unique set of
financing tools to deliver a project set
to open in fall 2019, on-time and onbudget.
Building on its partnership with
Virginia Department of
Transportation (VDOT), Transurban
undertook to finance, develop,
construct, operate and maintain the
new lanes in collaboration with
multiple parties. They created a
unified credit which improved on
connectivity between Halifax
and Dartmouth: the 1.3km Angus
L. Macdonald Bridge (opened in
1955) and the 1.2km A. Murray
MacKay Bridge (opened in 1970),
which together support 34 million
annual crossings.
Created in 1950, HHB operates
both bridges and is self-funded
through tolling revenues. By
2015 the Macdonald Bridge was
wearing out and HHB undertook a
feat attempted only once before:
retrofitting suspended spans
with new deck whilst keeping the
bridge open at peak times.
The Big Lift entailed a
titanic rolling removal and
replacement of 46 deck segments,
accomplished entirely during
overnight and weekend closures.
HHB won public project support
through an imaginative outreach
campaign based on the principle
of ‘Show, don’t tell,’ which secured
an IBTTA Toll Excellence Award in
2018. HHB last welcomed IBTTA’s
membership to Halifax in 1999,
when their annual theme was
‘Growing Your Toll Business in the
Next Millennium.’ The intervening
years should provide old friends
with much to discuss.
Heading for Halifax
The 2019 IBTTA Annual Meeting takes place in Halifax, Nova Scotia
Segment 95 to support Series 2017
Credit Bonds and earned a one-notch
credit upgrade to BBB from S&P and
Fitch. US$1.5 billion in priority orders
allowed spread-tightening to a final
+49-50 basis points to Municipal
Market Data rate, showing
outstanding fiscal value.
“This IBTTA Award reiterates the
value of public-private partnerships
in rebuilding America’s
infrastructure,” says Transurban
North America president, Jennifer
Aument. “The project adds a third
reversible lane for a faster rush-hour
trip while creating time-savings on
regular lanes for easier access to the
Pentagon and the explosive economic
growth at Crystal City, generating
600 jobs and US$0.5 billion in
economic activity.”
“This is a model example of
a successful P3 and we are proud
that commuters and regional
communities will reap its immediate
and long-term benefits.”
This IBTTA Award reiterates
the value of public-private
partnerships in rebuilding America’s
infrastructure
Jennifer Aument, North America president, Transurban
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF RELEVANT AGENCIES, PLUS STOCK.ADOBE.COM
$0.5bn The predicted additional
economic activity that
will be generated annually
at Crystal City, DC,
aided by the new
express lane
IBTTA Awards |
036 Traffic Technology International September/October 2019
www.TrafficTechnologyToday.com
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