Latest news with #HNTB
Business Journals
25-04-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
HNTB wins bid to manage Nashville's $6.9B transit expansion
Almost two-thirds of voters endorsed Mayor Freddie O'Connell's transit expansion referendum, which carries a $3.1 billion price tag if you could snap your fingers and create everything today. Metro now wants to hire this national company, which backed the pro-transit campaign of 2024, to serve as program manager for the years-long effort. A national company has won a bid to put Nashville's multibillion-dollar transit expansion into gear. Metro has chosen HNTB to serve as program manager for Choose How You Move, the name of Mayor Freddie O'Connell's transportation program that won approval of almost two-thirds of voters in November. The selection adds another central player to the roster of officials and contractors tasked with following through on the 15-year vision O'Connell cast in his transit plan. It would cost an estimated $3.1 billion to fully create everything today in that plan — whose price tag grows to $6.9 billion over those 15 years when accounting for operating costs, inflation and interest payments on construction bonds the city will be issuing. Davidson County's sales tax increased to 9.75% as a result of the transit referendum, establishing the city's first-ever revenue dedicated to transit. Key features of the proposal include overhauls to major corridors with bus-only lanes; almost 90 miles of new or upgraded sidewalks; creation of new crosstown routes and a dozen transit centers around the county; and adding technology at 600 intersections to synchronize signals to keep traffic moving more smoothly. HNTB beat three competitors for the Metro contract, which has an initial term of five years and can be extended another five years with Metro Council approval. HNTB has a lot of experience with infrastructure design and transportation projects. The Metro officials who evaluated the bids gave the Kansas City-based company a perfect 40-out-of-40 score in the "relevant program experience" category. The company has beefed up its Nashville office in the last couple of years and just in the Southeast has worked on transit and airport projects in Atlanta, Raleigh, Orlando and Tampa. Robbie Hayes, who's based in Nashville as HNTB's Tennessee group director, served as treasurer of Nashville Moves, an independent 501(c) nonprofit that supported the pro-transit campaign of 2024. According to state campaign finance records, HNTB donated $25,000 to the Nashville Moves Action Fund, which financed the pro-transit push. The selection of HNTB, formally announced April 21, came just a few days after O'Connell revealed who he hired on his staff to serve as chief program officer for Choose How You Move. That person is Sabrina Sussman, who's relocating from Washington, D.C., after most recently serving as a senior adviser for Pete Buttigieg during his tenure as President Joe Biden's transportation secretary. The contract award is pending a 10-day period in which protests can be filed.
Axios
08-04-2025
- General
- Axios
Final city water report: Richmond's water crisis worsened by miscommunication
Richmond released its final third-party after-action report about what happened during the city's water crisis. The big picture: The 94-page report, which came out last week, builds on the 15-page preliminary one the city shared in February. Both are from HNTB Corp., the Kansas City-based infrastructure firm the city hired, which visited the Richmond plant over three days in late January. State of play: HNTB makes clear in its final report that the lack of emergency protocols inside the plant, plus poor planning, training and communication, turned an equipment failure issue into a full-blown crisis. Zoom in: "There were several communication deficiencies," both internal and external, throughout the day on Jan. 6, according to the report, including: A failure to "adequately convey" to the counties the severity of the issues at the plant until sometime between 1 and 2pm, 8 hours after the initial outage. There was no clear communications structure for staff responding to the issues at the plant, which caused workers to only communicate in small groups. The poor communication led to plant staffers incorrectly reporting to the city that a backup generator had been started and was operational. It wasn't, and the HNTB says they couldn't trace the origin of the claim, only noting that it was widely shared. "A misrepresentation like this likely caused a false sense of security by City and regional leaders early on in the crisis," per the report. Other notable findings: There was "little proactive action" taken by staff at the plant to prepare for the storm or a possible power outage, despite the state and city being under a state of emergency. The lack of storm planning included a failure to test backup equipment that could be needed in the event of a power outage. The plant's internal organizational structure at the time added to staff's confusion because it was unclear which department should've been responding to what became multiple failures inside the plant.
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ridership of Milwaukee's streetcar The Hop sees slight uptick in passengers compared to previous year: Inside the data
Ridership of Milwaukee's streetcar ticked slightly upward last year with its highest monthly totals of rides thanks to a boost from Summerfest, according to new data posted on the organization's website. Until earlier this month, ridership data had not been updated since last August after the former streetcar manager submitted his resignation in October in lieu of discharge, according to city records. Following his resignation, the city hired engineering consulting firm HNTB in the interim to assist with operations, and posted the job listing last month to hire a replacement for the role. "We are always aiming for strong ridership numbers and we know that certain events, and weather play a part in that, but we didn't have any anticipated numbers per se," wrote DPW spokesperson Tiffany Shepherd in an email. Here's a breakdown of the most recent Hop ridership data. Total ridership for the Hop last year was 532,460 passengers, up slightly over the previous year from 494,445 passengers. That's a nearly 8% year-over-year increase. Ridership continues to increase since the COVID-19 pandemic, although it still falls short of total ridership numbers prior to 2020. The streetcar recorded more than 760,000 passengers in 2019, according to data on its website. Hop ridership dropped 28% during the RNC, held July 15-18 in downtown Milwaukee, compared to the same week in 2023. Ridership during Bastille Days also decreased 22% compared to 2023, with 14,269 riders taking it during the festival, held July 11-14. However, ridership increased 30% year-over-year during Summerfest with 28,383 total trips during the festival. An average of 3,154 passengers took the Hop during Summerfest, which ran nine days over a three-weekend stretch (June 20-22, June 27-29 and July 4-6). The Hop started running in 2018 and is a fixed-transit network stretching across a 2.1-mile route that runs in a loop through eastern downtown to the edge of the Historic Third Ward. Another .4-mile lakefront line through the Couture high-rise started last year. RELATED: Do visiting Republicans also think The Hop is a boondoggle? The Hop M-Line operates Monday through Friday from 5 a.m. to midnight, Saturday from 7 a.m. to midnight, and Sunday from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Streetcars arrive every 15 minutes during peak hours and every 20 minutes during off peak hours and on Sunday. The L-Line streetcar provides service to existing stations at Wisconsin Avenue northbound and southbound, City Hall northbound and southbound, Historic Third Ward eastbound, and stations Michigan at Jackson eastbound, Clybourn at Jefferson westbound, and the Lakefront inside the Couture transit plaza. Passengers can ride the streetcar for free. Complete ridership data for The Hop is available online at This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Ridership of Milwaukee's streetcar the Hop increases in 2024 over 2023
