Maryland's $11B P3 Road Project Moves Forward With Outreach

P3 project will improve a heavily traveled stretch of highways in Maryland. Map courtesy of AM Partners

The public-private partnership team selected to expand and improve a stretch of highway between Interstate 270 and I-70 in Maryland is preparing to move forward with Requests for Qualifications (RFQs) for the first phase of the estimated $11-billion project.

Accelerate Maryland Partners (AM Partners), led by Transurban and Macquarie, plans to reach financial close on Phase South, the first 14-mile section, by fall of 2022. A series of outreach events, starting with one on June 16, is planned.

Phase South will involve design, construction, operations and maintenance and tolling from south of the American Legion Bridge along I-495 to the I-370/I-270 interchange along I-270.

AM Partners will be issuing RFQs this month for the design and construction of Phase South A (I-495 from the vicinity of the George Washington Memorial Parkway to I-270) and Phase South B (I-270 from I-495 to I-370). After selecting up to three teams, Requests for Proposals should go out in August, says a spokesperson.

The team has a 50-year concession agreement and plans to begin predevelopment work this summer, the spokesperson says. That work will include working with stakeholders, utilities and the Maryland Dept. of Transportation to advance design.

Aileen Cho, ENR's senior transportation editor, is a native of Los Angeles and recovering New Yorker. She studied English and theater at Occidental College, where a reporter teaching the one existing journalism course encouraged her to apply for the LA Times Minority Editing Training Program. Her journalism training led to her first stories about transportation, working as a cub reporter with the Greenwich Time. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and New York Times. Many of her experiences with engineers and contractors have inspired material for her alternative theater productions way, way off Broadway. For ENR, Aileen has traveled the world, clambering over bridges in China, touring an airport in Abu Dhabi and descending into dark subway tunnels in New York City. She is a regular at transportation conferences, where she finds that airport and mass transit engineers really know how to have fun. Aileen is always eager to hop on another flight because there are so many interesting projects and people, and she gets tired of throwing her cats off her computer in her home office in Long Beach, California. She is a very conflicted Mets/Dodgers fan.