AOT outlines town highway grant rules, allocation method and nonfederal disaster fund to Senate Transportation

Chad Greenwood, a transportation maintenance engineer with the Agency of Transportation (AOT), briefed the Senate Transportation Committee on the Town Highway Structures program, the Town Highway Class 2 roadway program and the agency’s Town Highway nonfederal disaster program. Greenwood and AOT staff described program caps, local-match rules and how districts prioritize applications, and answered senators’ questions about inflation, geographic distribution and whether sidewalks or Complete Streets elements are eligible.

Greenwood told the committee that the Town Highway Structures program covers work such as bridges, culverts and retaining walls on town highways classified as class 1, 2 and 3. “The max awards, $200,000 for a town,” Greenwood said, and he described a local-match requirement he summarized as 20 percent; he also said the match can be reduced to 10 percent “if town adopts codes and standards.”

The Town Highway Class 2 roadway program currently is funded at $8.6 million, Greenwood said, with a similar $200,000 per-town cap. He said the program’s stated local match is 30 percent of total costs, with the match reducible to 20 percent where towns adopt codes and standards (transcript statements). For both the structures and class 2 programs, Greenwood said town applications are processed through the AOT maintenance program and district project managers.

Why it matters: these three programs provide the principal state funding source towns use for small bridge and roadway repairs…