The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (“PennDOT”) expects to award bids to develop compressed natural gas (“CNG”) refueling stations throughout the state by the end of 2015 as the agency and its counterpart in Maryland increasingly employ Public-Private Partnership (“P3”) laws  to align with private partners to facilitate new transportation projects.

On September 29, 2014, Pennsylvania’s P3 Board authorized PennDOT to seek a private partner to design, build, finance, operate and maintain up to 37 CNG filling stations.  On January 16, 2015, PennDOT named four teams to its shortlist of candidate partners.  The following teams are vying for selection:

• Clean Energy - Newport Beach, CA
• GP Strategies - Escondido, CA[1]
• Spire - St. Louis, MO[2]
• Trillium CNG - Salt Lake City, UT[3]

The CNG project is just the latest of a number of  P3 projects approved by the Board since Pennsylvania’s P3 law – The Public and Private Partnerships for Transportation Act – came into effect in 2012.  The seven-member Board examines and approves new P3 projects.

Other recent notable P3 initiatives in Pennsylvania include the Wireless Telecommunications Partnership Program and the Rapid Bridge Replacement Project.  The Rapid Bridge Replacement Project calls for the replacement of 558 bridges, making it among the nation’s largest P3 projects.  More information on this project and other Pennsylvania P3s can be found at http://www.p3forpa.pa.gov/.

Not to be outdone by its northern neighbor, Maryland is in the final stages of green-lighting a new P3 project that is expected to exceed $2 billion in costs.  The P3 project is a new 16-mile light rail to be called the “Purple Line.”  Maryland is down to four final private bidders, with selection expected later this year.

[1] Team additionally comprised of L.R. Kimball (Ebensburg, PA), McCrossin (Bellefonte, PA), and Gladstein Neandross & Assoc. (Santa Monica, CA).