Turkish State Railways’ (Turkiye Cumhuriyeti Devlet Demiryollari, or TCDD) plans to build a 6,000-kilometers network of high-speed track have received a major boost from China. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao signed an agreement in early October in Ankara to loan approximately $28 billion for construction of a 2,000-km high-speed Silk Road Railway. The route will connect Edirne, which is on Turkey’s western border with Bulgaria, and Kars, which is in the northeast near the closed border of Armenia. The Kars–Tbilisi–Baku conventional railway—which links Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan—has been under construction since 2007 and is scheduled for completion by 2012. + Image

Eiffage, France’s third-largest contractor, is building a $315-million toll road in Dakar. Eiffage will have a 30-year concession to build, finance, operate and maintain the 25-kilometer-long road. At present, more than 100,000 vehicles use a double-lane road to enter and exit Dakar on a daily basis, causing severe traffic congestion. The Dakar-Diamniadio toll road is expected to cut the average commute to less than 30 minutes from two hours. Work already has begun on the easternmost segment in the suburb of Diamniadio. But land purchases are still under way in the urban district of Pikine in Dakar. Several thousand families

The California High-Speed Rail Authority approved the first phase of the $43-billion, 800-mile statewide system, giving the go-ahead to a stretch between the small towns of Madera and Corcoran in the Central Valley. The 65-mile-long project will include two stations in downtown Fresno and one at a site east of Hanford, along with a maintenance center located between Merced and Bakersfield. This initial segment will use about $4 billion of the available $4.3 billion to also acquire rights of way, construct viaducts, prepare the site, restore vegetation, build rail bridges, realign roadways and relocate existing railways and utilities. The authority’s

A pair of Colombian firms have been granted a 30-year concession to build and operate a 220-kilovolt electrical transmission line in Peru that will draw power from a hydroelectric plant near Machu Picchu. Empresa de Energia de Bogota S.A. and Interconexion Electrica S.A. will build the 204-kilometer Machu Picchu-Abancay-Cotaruse line for $62.5 million, officials said. Over the summer, the Zürich, Switzerland-based ABB group was awarded a three-year, $148.5-million contract to increase the installed power of the Machu Picchu facility to 99.86 megawatts and build an 87.57-MW facility near Santa Teresa. The project is designed to regulate the level and flow

Reaction to the administration’s decision to put the brakes on future oil and gas leasing development in certain areas of the Outer Continental Shelf through 2017 has been divided. Industry groups blasted the decision, saying it would stifle growth. But environmental groups praised the administration for learning from the lessons of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. On Dec. 1, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said his agency would modify a proposal, released in March, for the OCS leasing program by choosing to focus resources on planning areas that already have leases for potential future development. Consequently, the area in the eastern

Interested parties have until Jan. 14 to take advantage of the first of two public comment periods on the draft update of the popular Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green-building rating system. The U.S. Green Building Council hopes to release the revised system in November 2012, after an August 2012 ballot. The proposed system builds on LEED 2009, which includes the alignment and weighting of credits for certification, says USGBC. The upcoming version also develops the LEED 2009 framework that allows credits to be applied to specific building types. The draft increases emphasis on integrated process and building

The nation’s biggest landlord, the U.S. General Services Administration, is requiring LEED Gold certification as a minimum in all new federal building construction and substantial renovation projects. GSA is updating its facilities standards by the end of the year to enable the projects to meet the LEED Gold requirement—the second-to-the-highest of four certification levels of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green-building rating system. For projects currently under design that were funded before fiscal 2010, GSA is requiring LEED Gold where possible, after evaluating budget and schedule constraints. For leased properties, GSA is keeping its current requirement for LEED

Photo: Courtesy of Oregon Sustainability Center Oregon Sustainability Center’s planned height is at least 70 ft. Related Links: International Living Building Institute Construction is scheduled to begin in about a year and be finished 18 months later on a planned 70 to 100-ft-tall net-zero-energy use building in Portland that would, if completed, rank as the tallest net-zero-energy-use building in the U.S. The team for the $40-million Oregon Sustainability Center, which includes SERA Architects, GBD Architects and general contractor Skanska USA, is beginning a 12-week feasibility phase. Design should start in February. The seven-to-nine-story structure would be the tallest ever proposed

By starting work in late November on a $200-million upgrade of its central transmission system, Vancouver is making its first significant investment in the city’s power grid in 30 years. The project includes construction of an oversized three-story substation to meet future capacity needs and a tunnel beneath one of the city’s major waterways. Photo: Courtesy of BC Hydro Upgraded distribution center will take some capacity from three older stations. Marcel Reghelini, BC Hydro senior project manager, says the work is happening in Mount Pleasant, a fast-growing neighborhood no longer adequately served by three aging substations. “We’re putting in a

As the Federal Railroad Administration pursues regulations regarding inspection of concrete railroad ties, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority last month launched a $91-million project to replace 147,000 concrete ties that began failing in just 10 years. Photo: Courtesy VHB Thousands of precast concrete ties began to fail in just 10 years. In 1997, the MBTA chose concrete over timber ties because Rocla Concrete Tie Inc., a Denver-based precast-concrete manufacturer, claimed they had a 50-year life span compared to 30 years for timber ties. But in 2007, several thousand ties began cracking and crumbling, disrupting train service on the 61-mile Old