A planned rail transit spur in northern Virginia has moved another step forward, with U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters' approval of a $900-million, multi-year federal funding commitment towards the project's $2.6-billion first phase. With Peters' Jan. 7 action, the proposed "full funding grant agreement" goes to Congress for a 60-day review. Slide Show Photo: Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority First phase would carry line part way to Dulles airport. Related Links: FTA Approves First-Phase Funds for Virginia Rail Project The $900 million would help finance an 11.6-mile first stage of a planned 23-mile extension of of the Washington Metropolitan Area

Ten-mile hikes, wasp nests and forest fires marked an almost unfeasible feasibility study for a potential world-record road tunnel. Engineering geologists with Kleinfelder Inc., San Diego, are now working on a report, due by fall, for the Orange County Transportation Authority and Riverside County Transportation Commission. It will assess the possibility of building a pair of 50-ft-dia tunnels almost 12 miles long under the Cleveland National Forest in Southern California. Photo: Klienfelder Rugged test sites required a full-time helicopter. Engineers say tunnel-boring technology is not quite there yet, but might be by the time the agencies find funding and complete

The Texas Dept. of Transportation announced on Jan. 6 that it pulled the plug on the estimated $200-billion Trans-Texas Corridor, a vision introduced by TxDOT and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) in 2002. TxDOT Executive Director Amadeo Saenz Jr. made the announcement during the fourth annual Texas Transportation Forum in Austin. Projects already started under the heading of the Trans-Texas-Corridor will continue as a series of individual projects. Portions of two TTC projects are under development: Interstate 69 from Texarkana/Shreveport to the Mexico border and the I-35 corridor from north of Dallas/Fort Worth to Mexico. Perry cited financing as a

The Shaw Group Inc. and Westinghouse Electric Co. LLC have signed a contract for engineering, procurement and construction of a two-unit nuclear powerplant at a greenfield site in Levy County, Fla. Progress Energy Florida Inc., the owner, expects to receive a combined construction and operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by early 2012. Current plans are for operation of the plant in the 2016-18 time frame, after which Progress Energy will retire its two oldest coal-fired units at the Crystal River Energy Complex in Citrus County, Fla. The new units will be AP1000 pressurized-water reactors, rated at 1,105 MW.

A public-private partnership in the San Francisco Bay Area plans to build a $1-billion network of electric-car charging stations, while in Portland, Ore., a utility and two private firms already are erecting electric vehicle battery-charging stations in a cluster of nearby cities. Photo: Better Place Recharging takes one minute per mile driven, or drivers can swap out batteries. In Oregon, Nissan Motors and Renault SA have signed a memorandum of understanding with Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D) to supply electric vehicles to the state’s fleet in 2010. Nissan also committed to work with the state, in partnership with utility Portland General

Dropping demand for gasoline has taken a chunk out of last year’s super-high prices, and refiners are shifting capital expenditures accordingly. Prices for gasoline rose 7.1¢ on Jan. 5 to $1.68 per gallon but were still down 46% overall since a year ago, reports the federal Energy Information Administration. On-highway diesel prices fell 3.6¢, to $2.29, a 32% drop since 2008 and the lowest in years. Despite the winter price rollback for both fuels, diesel is “the growth fuel, globally,” says Allen Schaeffer, executive director of Washington, D.C.-based Diesel Technology Forum. As such, ExxonMobil Corp. and others are boosting output

A group of engineers and scientists will host a conference this spring to push for development of design criteria for storm-surge barriers to protect New York City. Global warming, rising sea levels and more frequent and violent storms mean the city inevitably will face a devastating hurricane, says conference organizer Douglas Hill, a consulting engineer and adjunct lecturer at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, N.Y. Hill is working with the American Society of Civil Engineers N.Y. Metropolitan Section’s Infrastructure Group and the New York Academy of Sciences, as well as with municipal

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has released for public comment its proposal for the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex, a surge protection project that will include a 20,000- to 25,000-cu-ft-per-second capacity pump station, the largest in the nation. The GIWW Closure Complex will likely be the largest component of the Greater New Orleans Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System. Located just south of New Orleans on the west bank of the Mississippi River, it is intended to reduce risk from a storm event with an intensity that has a 1% chance of occurring in any given year.

A proposal by a North Carolina artist is laying the foundation for what may become the largest in-situ residential soil-lead remediation project in the country. Artist Mel Chin’s work often brings site-specific art to unlikely places, including destroyed homes and landfills. He has worked with scientists in the past to create gardens of hyperaccumulators—plants that draw heavy metals from soil. Now he is attracting academic, engineering and social resources to ask Congress for $300 million to address soil-lead contamination in New Orleans. Photo: Pam Radtke Russell Chin’s Operation Paydirt would be the largest urban soil cleanup in the U.S. Although

States must now certify that their building codes meet tougher energy-efficiency requirements under a new determination by the U.S. Dept. of Energy. DOE says it has established the latest standard from the American National Standards Institute/American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Standard 90.1-2004, as the commercial building reference standard for state building energy codes.