Spanish infrastructure group Ferrovial opened the 36km I-66 Managed Lanes toll road in Virginia at the end of November, completing one of the biggest public-private partnership (PPP) road projects in the US this century.
Representing an investment of $3.6bn, the I-66 runs between Route 29 near Gainesville to the Capital Beltway in Fairfax County on the outskirts of Washington DC.
The goal was to relieve congestion on the heavily used artery by adding toll lanes with dynamic charging.
Ferrovial subsidiary Cintra will operate and maintain the road under a 50-year concession. The concessionaire is owned 55.7% by Ferrovial, in partnership with Meridiam (29.7%) and APG (14.5%).
Ferrovial Construction designed and built the road with local company Allan Myers.
The expressway’s digital infrastructure includes connected-vehicle-to-infrastructure and wrong-way detection systems, data capture and edge processing, HD mapping, GPS and positioning systems.
Alberto González, CEO of Cintra in the US, said the project faced “numerous and unprecedented challenges, such as a global pandemic, labor shortages and, more recently, the impact of inflation”.
It has employed 8,755 people since its start in 2017, with a daily average of 2,000 workers at peak. Around 400 local companies were involved in the work.
Building the road took 44.5 million cubic yards of concrete, 29,000 tons of steel, 3.1 million tons of asphalt, and 300 units of heavy machinery, Ferrovial said.
