Governor Rendell Announces Second Round of Stimulus Projects

Due to low-bid savings on the first round of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) projects within the Commonwealth, PA Governor Ed Rendell announced yesterday the addition of 52 projects to PA's list of highway and bridge improvements being funded by ARRA. The combination of competition and the decrease of construction costs due to the poor economy has meant that bids for ARRA projects have been, on average, 11% under estimates, according to the governor. Rendell says that this has allowed the state to stretch the recovery dollars further and fund more badly needed projects.

In a letter to US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood certifying the additional projects, Governor Rendell noted that "Pennsylvania has made and will continue to make good use of these funds to tackle backlogs in both bridge and pavement maintenance on our system". PA's allocation of $1.026 billion for highway and bridge projects remains unchanged. As of July 24, 2009, PennDOT had told contractors to begin work on 178 ARRA projects worth $420 million.

Of the 52 additional ARRA projects, 8 are in the Greater Philadelphia region. They are listed below:

Bucks County
New Hope Cultural Canal Walk construction, New Hope - $250,000

Chester County
New Sidewalks in Tredyffrin Township - $2.8 million
US Route 202 repaving between Stanton Avenue and PA Route 100 Bypass - $4.7 million

Delaware County
Resurfacing of Valley Road in Edgemont Township - $200,000

Montgomery County
Interstate 476 (Blue Route) reconstruction - $3.5 million
Traffic Signal Upgrades at 33 intersections in 11 municipalities - $4.2 million

Philadelphia County
Street resurfacing - $5 million
Gustine Lake bridges (near City Avenue and the Schuylkill Expressway Interchange) - $9.9 million

To read the full press release, click here

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GVF's Bike to Work Competition

Most recently, GVF Transportation has been managing a Bike to Work Competition between four of its large corporate partners – the Department of Environmental Protection, GlaxoSmithKline, SEI, and Wyeth. This competition runs from May 11 to September 25, 2009, and encourages employees to ditch their cars and bike to work. They pledge to commute to work by bike at least one day a week during the competition, logging the number of days and miles they bike per week. The competition has been very successful thus far with 96 participants that have biked over 20,000 miles. Two local bike shops have generously donated several bike related items to be raffled off each week to those who biked that week.

On July 16th, Bikesport, located in Trappe, PA, hosted a Wine and Cheese event for the participants. Many cyclists were able to stop by and it was a great success. Representatives from the DEP were in attendance, and material from Suburban Cyclists Unlimited and Montgomery County Trails was made available to those who attended.

Come October, GVF Transportation is coordinating with each partner to hold a ceremony recognizing those that made an environmental impact by keeping vehicles off the roadways. They will be awarded a certificate of participation, identifying their reduction of CO2 and other environmental statistics, and those who have gone above and beyond in the competition will also be recognized. An additional overall CO2 reduction report will also be distributed to each company.

You can follow the Bike to Work Competition on Twitter!

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Peeling Back Pavement to Expose Watery Havens -

Published by The New York Times - July 16, 2009

For half a century, a dark tunnel of crumbling concrete encased more than three miles of a placid stream bisecting this bustling city.
The waterway had been a centerpiece of Seoul since a king of the Choson Dynasty selected the new capital 600 years ago, enticed by the graceful meandering of the stream and its 23 tributaries. But in the industrial era after the Korean War, the stream, by then a rank open sewer, was entombed by pavement and forgotten beneath a lacework of elevated expressways as the city’s population swelled toward 10 million.
Today, after a $384 million recovery project, the stream, called Cheonggyecheon, is liberated from its dank sheath and burbles between reedy banks. Picnickers cool their bare feet in its filtered water, and carp swim in its tranquil pools.
The restoration of the Cheonggyecheon is part of an expanding environmental effort in cities around the world to “daylight” rivers and streams by peeling back pavement that was built to bolster commerce and serve automobile traffic decades ago.
Click here to read full article

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