Preparing for Federal Stimulus Transportation Projects – OCTC Role

** May 26, 2009 Technical Committee meeting **
First Notice ,  Second Notice 

** OCTC Highway / Bridge Stimulus Program of Projects **
as revised, 5/5/09 Executive Committee meeting

** Orange County, Transit Program of Stimulus Projects, Round 1**
OCTC Mail Balloting being conducted May 18-22, 2009

At the special Executive Committee and Technical Committee meetings on May 5, 2009, additional highway/bridge stimulus funding was programmed for eligible and ready-to-go projects. That followed from the original stimulus programming which was accomplished on February 24, 2009. OCTC has now programmed up to the amount of highway/bridge stimulus funding which is currently expected ($29.06M). In addition, on May 5th OCTC programmed over and above the expected funding (to $33.16M) in order to have ready to go projects which could be substituted for another programmed project which ultimately fails to meet ARRA stimulus program deadlines or which could be implemented should a greater than expected amount of stimulus funding be provided. The latter could occur if other states (or other regions in the state) fail to meet program deadlines. The New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) has provided a revised planning target ($36.53M) in order to prepare for the potential of additional funds becoming available. The difference between the currently programmed amount and the revised planning target, $3.37M, is what will be considered for additional programming on May 26th. Any stimulus programming recommendations from the Technical Committee will be forwarded to the Executive Committee for their consideration as amendments to the OCTC 2008-2012 TIP. The Executive Committee also adopted resolution 2009-08 regarding stimulus programming evaluation criteria at the May 5, 2009, which is posted here .

NYSDOT ARRA Program Re-Evaluation Guidance to Regions and MPO's

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, popularly known as the “stimulus bill”, was passed by the U.S. Congress and then signed into law by the President on 2/17/2009. Of the total $789 Billion in this legislation, $27.5 Billion was allocated to Highways & Bridges and $8.4 Billion for Transit. These national funding amounts are being subsequently apportioned to the states. New York State will receive $1.12 Billion for Highways & Bridges and $1.245 Billion for Transit. It is these two sources of stimulus funding which have resulted in sub-allocations for projects in Orange County and which must be programmed through OCTC, because Federal Law requires that all such Federal surface transportation funding must be programmed on the local and State Transportation Improvement Programs (TIP & STIP). The Orange County Transportation Council is the local entity which manages the TIP within Orange County. See this page for updates to the OCTC 2008-12 TIP; projects programmed with ARRA stimulus funds show “EconStim09” as a fund source. [There were other funds allocated in the bill for intercity and high speed rail; it is unclear at this point whether any of those funds will need to be dealt with through OCTC.]

See www.recovery.gov for more information. See www.nysdot.gov for more information on New York’s stimulus efforts, including required ARRA Certifications which have been made by Governor Paterson; certification of projects is an ongoing process and update to the State pages are made frequently as necessary. The Governor certifies highway / bridge stimulus projects. Orange County Executive Edward A. Diana will certify county transit stimulus projects, which will be posted on this page; Metropolitan Transportation Authority certifications will be posted at a link accessible at www.mta.info.

While the funding is new, these highway, bridge, and transit funds will flow through existing programs of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Federal Transit Administrations (FTA). The NYS Department of Transportation administers FHWA funding. All federally-aided local highway & bridge projects – whether they are funded through stimulus or any other FHWA fund source – can only be undertaken in direct coordination and contracting through the NYSDOT Region 8 office and its Local Projects Unit. Federal Transit funding will be allocated to small and large urban areas and to rural areas; such funds will be managed by FTA Designated Recipients or the State for rural areas. The Large Urban Area allocation within Orange County is $9.476M, part of the overall Poughkeepsie-Newburgh Large Urban Area apportionment of $23.421M (sub-allocations have been approved by OCTC and the Ulster County Transportation Council, two of the three transportation councils (or ‘MPOs’) in the Mid-Hudson Valley Transportation Management Areas; the Poughkeepsie-Dutchess County Transportation Council action is pending. The Small Urban Area allocation in Orange County is $1.110M  Follow this link for the OCTC adopted sub-allocation Resolution 2009-05.  Again, any transportation funds must be programmed on the OCTC TIP prior to undertaking projects. Orange County and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority are the only FTA designated recipients locally.

Beginning as far back as November 2008, OCTC staff and member agencies have been working to make preparations in anticipation of the potential adoption of this new Federal economic stimulus legislation. Agencies and municipalities have shared their stimulus project ideas with OCTC staff. Transportation-related project ideas have been accumulated on OCTC stimulus listings and staff have been working to get more information, determine eligibility for federal aid, and attempt to help assess deliverability (or ‘shovel readiness’ or ‘ready-to-go-ness’). These lists and related information were posted on the OCTC website beginning on 2/3/2009 to facilitate review by other agencies and the public.

The OCTC Technical Committee met on 2/24/2009 to review the draft stimulus listing in order to prepare proposed TIP amendments. Immediately following this meeting, the OCTC Executive Committee met to review this work and subsequently adopted by resolution amendments to the OCTC 2008-2012 TIP to program economic stimulus funding. This set of amendments included projects programmed for stimulus funding as well as a number of other projects not programmed for stimulus funding at this time, but which are ‘illustrative’ and may potentially be programmed for stimulus funding at a later date IF the projects initially programmed for stimulus funding do not progress.  OCTC Resolution 2009-03

The relevant information from a staff presentation at the 2/24/2009 OCTC meetings is posted here:  OCTC Feb24 Presentation. 

OCTC Technical Committee & Executive Committee meetings were held respectively on March 17 and March 24, 2009 to continue coordination regarding the Federal stimulus initiative. As a result of these meetings, two projects programmed for stimulus funding in February were dropped from the stimulus list (reverting to their previous status on the ITP; one project had additional stimulus funds programmed; one project from the illustrative list was programmed with stimulus funds to augment the other federal funds programmed for that project. This table shows the status of the OCTC highway/bridge stimulus program as of the close of the 3/24/09 Executive Committee.

The OCTC Technical Committee & Executive Committee conducted meetings respectively on April 21 and April 28, 2009, which again were in large part focused on stimulus programming considerations. At these meetings, NYSDOT announced that OCTC had an increased stimulus funding target for ready to go federal-aid-eligible highway and bridge projects. The increased amount of funding was approximately $3.4M. Given the extremely tight timeframes, no new projects and few existing stimulus projects would be able to incorporate increased scopes and still allow NYSDOT Region 8 to process them within the Round 1 timeframe before June 29,2009. Following its discussion on April 28, 2009, the OCTC Executive Committee scheduled special Technical Committee and Executive Committee meetings for May 5, 2009 to consider whether and how this additional funding could be programmed as well as to continue discussions regarding the outlook for the ability to continue work on projects beyond the Round 1 Federal fund obligation deadline at the end of June 2009 and the prospect for programming for potential Round 2 projects (and what the process/schedule might be for such projects). The meeting notice and materials for both May 5, 2009 meetings are posted here.  See the OCTC Highway / Bridge Stimulus Program of Projects as revised at the May 5, 2009 Executive Committee meeting.

At the April 28, 2009 meeting the Executive Committee also acted on a stimulus funding request from NYSDOT related to a cross-state bridge rehab project (the NY209/US6 Bridge over the Delaware River, City of Port Jervis). Using State stimulus funding which would not affect the OCTC stimulus funding target, the Executive Committee acted to amend the TIP for this project. The TIP information related to this project is posted here.

At the April 28, 2009 meeting the Executive Committee was also presented with a draft Orange County Round 1 transit capital program of projects, which is shown as the second page in the OCTC 5/5/09 meeting mailing posted here. The County proposes to purchase 14 transit buses (hybrid diesel-electric) and 5 dial-a-buses. This stimulus funding is described in three existing projects already on the OCTC 2008-2012 TIP and one new project to be added to the TIP. A 15-day public comment period from May 1 to May 15, 2009 resulted in no comments on the draft local transit stimulus program.  An OCTC Executive Committee mail ballot is being conducted from May 18-22, 2009 to act on the four TIP projects.  Please contact Transit Planner Rob Parrington at the Orange County Planning Department with questions or comments regarding this proposed program (rparrington@orangecountygov.com, 845-615-3852).

New or revised transportation stimulus project information will be posted on this website when it becomes available.

Sources of information related to transportation stimulus funding:
   • Federal Government::  www.recovery.gov
   • New York State Department of Transportation:
          o See the economic recovery link at: www.nysdot.gov. This page has links to other resources including the main NY State stimulus web page.
          o NYSDOT One Page Overview Regarding Eligibility For Federal Aid.  Not all roadways may have federal funds spent on them. For maps which show which roads are eligible for federal aid within Orange County, please see the “Highway Functional Classification” page on this website.
          o NYSDOT Stimulus Guidance for Transportation Councils (MPOs) (PDF, 44kb)
          o NYSDOT Region 8 conducted a “Local Project Fair” on February 25th in Poughkeepsie. See announcement here.  Any municipality that has a project programmed for stimulus funding which did not attend the fair must contact NYSDOT Region 8 as soon as possible.
  • Federal Highway Administration:  www.fhwa.dot.gov/economicrecovery
  • Federal Transit Administration:  www.fta.dot.gov (follow link from main page)
  • Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (that is, the national association of transportation councils):  www.ampo.org

Other information about stimulus funding for transportation:
  • OCTC is involved with transportation stimulus only.
  • Stimulus funding like other federal transportation funding is by reimbursement. Governments seeking to carry out a project with stimulus funding will need to budget for “first instance” funding which would be reimbursed only after costs are incurred. 
  • Projects must be eligible for federal aid funding. For highway / bridge stimulus generally any publicly-owned bridge or a highway on the federal aid system is eligible. Normal maintenance work is not eligible but certain capital maintenance is eligible. See NYSDOT / OCTC info above. 
  • Projects which will be most ready to go are most likely to be funded through the stimulus program. The most ready to go projects are those already on the TIP & STIP, have project sponsors that have been actively progressing projects through NYSDOT, and are in a position of being ready to contract for construction. For highway / bridge projects this would include:
     o "Design Approval" (certification of completion of the National Environmental Policy Act process) or be very close to NEPA/Design approval.
     o Have acquired all real estate in accordance with the Federal Uniform Relocation Act before advertisement for bid or have no real estate acquisitions
     o Have Plans, Specifications, and Estimates (PS&E) complete or almost complete to Federal and NYSDOT standards.
     o Have all necessary permits in hand or anticipated to be in hand.
     o For repaving projects – must carry out a NYSDOT safety assessment. See guidance from NYSDOT.
     o Have local funding budgeted for the project as this is a reimbursement program. Sponsor pays contractor, NYSDOT reimburses sponsor, Federal Highway Administration reimburses NYSDOT. Sponsor must adopt a project resolution and execute a project agreement with NYSDOT before the sponsor can be reimbursed.
  • Projects that are ready to go and have stimulus funding programmed will necessarily free up other programmed funds, some of which will most likely allow other projects to also be accelerated. Such projects would not be “stimulus” projects per se, but would nevertheless benefit from this new infusion of funding. It is too early to say exactly how this will transpire.
  • It is very important to realize and understand that the Federal government has put a premium on delivering projects. Funds which are not obligated within the time frames specified in the legislation are subject to being taken away and provided to other areas/states that have not demonstrated a problem in delivering projects (i.e. spending the stimulus money). OCTC may also need to set (even shorter) deadlines on progress so that there is an opportunity to reprogram funds locally before funds are at risk overall of being taken away.

Please direct any comments or questions regarding transportation stimulus funding to OC Planning Deputy Commissioner John Czamanske at jczamanske@orangecountygov.com.

** Orange County, Transit Program of Stimulus Projects, Round 1**
OCTC Mail Balloting being conductedMay 18-22, 2009