FL/I-595 gets two competing availability concession proposals for $1.5b upgrade REVISED

Two groups submitted proposals Friday for the approx-$1.5 billion upgrades to I-595, south Florida's east-west mega-highway/distributor project. It involves upgrades of the present 8 lane interstate with discontinuous frontage roads to a basic 19 lanes along 17km (10.5 miles) of the highway to a 3/5/3/5/3 lanes format, Texas style. The outside pair of 3 lane roadways are collector-distributors, the pair of 4 lane roadways are freeway accommodating bus rapid transit, and the central 3-lanes roadway is reversible tolled.

The groups making proposals for finance/design/build/operate/toll (FIDBOT) under an availability concession are:

- ACS/Dragados/Macquarie

- Babcock & Brown/Bilfinger Berger under the project company Express Access

Unlike a toll concession the availability concession will provide for payments from FDOT to the concession for lanes being available and open. FDOT will be entitled to the whole of the toll revenues, and therefore take the traffic and revenue risk.

The project

Confined by the Atlantic ocean to the east and huge swamps to the west, development in south Florida is mainly north-south (I-95, HEFT, Turnpike Mainline, US1) where the long distance traffic predominates. I-595 is something of an exception, taking on the role of catering to cross-Florida traffic since it leads into Alligator Alley (I-75) as well as serving as a commuter route to Fort Lauderdale and business centers south in Miami but also north to Palm Beach via the I-95 and the Turnpike/HEFT. At its eastern end I-595 has ramps directly into Fort Lauderdale International Airport. The project is in Broward County.

The new 3 central reversible lanes roadway is intended to cater to the tidal commuter flows east-bound in the mornings and westbound evenings. The express lanes will also be open to trucks.

Originally designed on Figg-style elevated structure they have been brought down onto fill in response to neighborhood opposition to a looming structure up there. There are however long acutely angled bridging arrangements to move traffic on and off the central toll express lanes.

The project also involves:

- extensive auxiliary lanes on the freeway sections between interchanges and on collector-distibutors making it up to 19 lanes total in the five roadways (Texans be impressed!)

- completion of frontage or collector-distributor roadways with their own Florida State Route 84 designation to cater to the most local movement east-west as well as to provide access-egress to the freeways

- addition of long new ramps at major interchanges to eliminate weaving

- a new bus rapid transit system

- sound walls and berms to reduce impacts on neighborhoods

Florida DOT which is conducting the procurement process will score the two proposals on 'technical' quality first, then open the financial proposals and score those.

FDOT owns the tolls and takes toll risk

Sketch level traffic and revenue studies showed a huge range of possible revenue streams from the tolls on the center roadway.

This has led Florida DOT to take the toll risk and go to an availability payments model, the first of its kind in the US. Availability concessions are most common in the Britain.

Draft concession document not public, yet

Florida DOT did produce a draft concession document, but it has not been publicly released at this point. (REVISED 2008-09-10 11:00) The concession will be for 35 years beginning at commercial close so they have an incentive to build quickly.

and FDOT will have some controls over toll rate setting. FDOT may assume most of the toll revenue risk in which case it could turn out to be more of an availability payments deal than a full toll concession. The concession is an "availability concession" in which the concessionaire is paid for the availability of lanes, both the general purpose and the toll lanes. (NEW)

FDOT will commit to pay down some of the concession payments with a lump sum at first availability of the lanes. The amount could be $600m of the estimated $1,500m project.

Schedule fast

Oct 24 is promised as the date for a decision on whether its to be ACS/Drag/Mac or B&B/BB.

FDOT wants to start construction in the spring of 2009, with the project complete by 2014.

Tolling will be all-electronic. And it would use dynamic pricing to prevent overload and maintain free flow conditions.

Visualizations show the FDOT signature gantry designed for overhead maintenance. Raytheon would seem to have an inside edge on the toll systems part with its umbrella toll contract with FDOT, but the proposers may have their own ideas.

Six became four became two

The project qualified six groups which were winnowed down to two in an interesting scoring process. The scores were:

Babcock & Brown/Bilfinger Berger 86
ACS/Dragados/Macquarie 71
OHL/GS/Balfour 66
Skanska/Laing/Fluor 66
FCC/Global Via/Caja de Madrid 55
Cintra/Ferrrovial 45

B&B/BB is a joint venture of an Australian infrastructure finance group and a Germany-based international builder. Skanska/Laing are Scandiavian/British based. ACS is the Madrid Spain based ACS, not the Dallas ACS E-ZPass customer service people. And the rest are basically Spain-based companies.

After the FDOT scoring, the bottom two were dropped, and the four left invited to submit proposals. #3 and #4 declined to propose, leaving it as a competition between #1 and #2.

The project web site: http://www.i-595.com

TOLLROADSnews 2008-09-08

REVISIONS 2008-09-10 11:00