With no prospect of quick action on a multi-year Federal Aviation Administration bill, the House has approved another in a series of extensions for FAA programs, including the agency's Airport Improvement Program construction grants. The measure, which extends funding authority and aviation user fees through Sept. 30, was approved on March 18 by voice vote. The next step is action by the Senate. Enactment of the extension is needed by March 31, when the current FAA extension lapses.

The U.S. Dept. of Transportation has formally committed $900 million to help construct the first phase of the Silver Line, a 23-mile extension of Washington, D.C.’s Metrorail system to Dulles International Airport in Virginia. The funding, which has been closely scrutinized due to concerns about the $5.2-billion project’s schedule and cost, allows the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) to move ahead with the initial $3.1-billion, 11.6-mile above-ground segment from the existing East Falls Church Station to Wiehle Road in Reston, Va. Dulles Transit Partners, the design-build consortium owned by Bechtel Infrastructure Inc. and Washington Group International, expects that phase to

The $527-million new South Ferry subway station at Manhattan’s southern tip opened on March 16, with platforms now long enough to accommodate 10-car trains rather than five. The 4.5-year-long project included a $261-million design-build contract, held by a joint venture of Schiavone Construction Co., Secaucus, N.J., and Granite Halmar Construction Co. Inc., Tarrytown, N.Y., for the reinforced-concrete structural box, which accommodates a 1,200-ft-long approach tunnel and the 500-ft-long new station. Photo: MTA/Patrivck Cashin

A U.S.-led joint venture that includes AECOM Technology Corp., Los Angeles, and CH2M Hill Cos., Denver, won an estimated $140-million program management contract for London’s vast new Crossrail project. The JV beat two other short-listed teams headed by Bechtel Ltd. and Parsons Brinckerhoff Ltd. The project cost has been estimated at $22 billion. The winning team, called Transcend, will “work alongside [us] as part of an integrated client team to manage the overall program,” says Steve Rowsell, head of procurement for project owner Cross London Rail Links Ltd. The Transcend team also includes U.K.-based Nichols Group Ltd. Primary project construction

The Environmental Protection Agency on March 12 announced that it will funnel $297 million in stimulus aid to three northwestern states, Alaska and tribal governments for clean water projects. The funds are the first installment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding to come from the EPA. The individual amounts directed to Alaska, Oregon, Washington and tribal governments will be delivered via existing programs: the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, and the Tribal clean Water & Drinking Water Set-Aside programs. Alaska will receive $43 million, Idaho will receive $39 million, Oregon will receive

The House of Representatives on March 5 approved legislation authorizing $19.4 billion to fund wastewater infrastructure over the next five years. The House voted 317 to 101 to approve the measure, which would authorize $13.8 billion over five years for the Clean Water state revolving funds (SRF), the principal source of federal funding for wastewater infrastructure. The bill also would provide more than $2.5 billion over five years in grants to address combined sewer overflows and sanitary sewer overflows and $750 million over five years for remediation of contaminated sediments in the Great Lakes region. Introduced just March 3 by

Amtrak soon will be receiving the first portion of $1.3 billion for capital improvements from the economic-stimulus package. Vice-President Joe Biden, a long-time Amtrak rider and supporter, told a March 13 press conference at Washington, D.C.'s Union Station, that the $1.3 billion "will nearly double Amtrak's investment program over the next two years." Photo: NCI, Leo King Drawbridge in Connecticut would be replaced. Amtrak President Joseph Boardman says the railroad expects to reach a final grant agreement with the Federal Railroad Administration on the stimulus funds with during the week of March 16. "Once we've got that, we're ready to

Federal agencies are moving out more federal stimulus aid. The Federal Aviation Administration said March 12 that it had released the first two allocations of its $1.1 billion in airport aid under the stimulus. Those allotments, totaling $12 million, will go to two Pittsburgh-area airports. In addition, the Dept. of Energy said it plans to release to state and local agencies an initial installment of about $780 million of the $8 billion the stimulus provided to DOE for home weatherization assistance and aid to states' energy offices. DOE says that the initial allocations include $471.8 million for the weatherization program

At conferences and on Websites, at research centers and out on windswept coasts around the world, increasing numbers of engineers, scientists, planners and policymakers are gathering to share ideas and lessons learned about a growing threat to one of the linchpins of civilization: the delta regions of the world. Those fragile landforms, built patiently over millennia by the sediment deposited at the mouths of the world’s mightiest rivers, are home to great ports and commercial centers of the global economy. They are, by definition, low and coastal; they also are on the front line to suffer hard consequences from climate

For centuries the Dutch took land from the sea by trapping sediment on tidal flats, diking polders and continuously pumping with windmills to dry the land. Now, faced with a need to bolster a 32-km, sea-facing dike built in the 1930s that turned the IJselmeer into Lake IJsel, an Amersfoort, Nl-based consulting firm, DVH, is proposing a return to old ways: Instead of breaking out heavy machinery and adding width and height to the dike to guard against sea-level rise, it proposes weaving traditional snags of willow reeds on tidal flats to trap sediment on the sea side of the