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MPO asks Mat-Su Assembly to endorse short-term project list, pledge local match for federal transportation funds
Summary
Mat Valley Planning (MVP) told the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly it received 87 project nominations for its new Metropolitan Transportation Plan and asked the assembly to adopt a resolution confirming short-term priorities and to commit to a 9.03% nonfederal match so roughly $10 million a year in federal funds can be programmed.
Kim Solian, executive director of Mat Valley Planning for Transportation (MVP), told the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly on July 21 that MVP has finalized a draft Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP) project list and is simultaneously developing the short-term Transportation Improvement Program (TIP). Solian said MVP received 87 project nominations from borough residents and municipal staff, then screened and scored those nominations against safety, multimodal connectivity and fiscal-leverage criteria.
"We received a total of 87 project nominations," Solian said. She told the assembly MVP expects to program roughly $10,000,000 a year of federal funding and is working to release the draft MTP for a 30-day public comment period in October and the draft TIP in November, with policy-board adoption planned for December. She asked the assembly to pass a resolution by early September stating that the borough's short-term projects are priorities and that the borough will commit to paying the 9.03% nonfederal match for any projects it chooses to advance.
Assembly members asked how projects were scored and whether city-nominated projects would require city matches. Solian and borough staff said projects were evaluated using a prioritization matrix and that cities (Wasilla and Palmer) would be responsible for their own match on city-nominated projects. Borough staff and MVP emphasized that the MTP and TIP are partner documents: projects must appear in the MTP to be eligible for TIP programming.
Solian cautioned that if the MTP and TIP are not finalized by December, federal transportation funding could be disrupted for the greater urbanized area. The presentation also described how projects were bucketed into short-term (4-year) TIP-eligible projects and mid- and long-range illustrative lists. MVP recommended the assembly work with borough staff and technical committee members to review the short-term list and consider a resolution that authorizes the borough to provide local match funding when projects come forward.
The assembly did not vote on a resolution that night; staff said they will draft a resolution and bring it to the assembly in September for consideration.
What happens next: MVP plans a public release of the draft MTP in October and the draft TIP in November; the borough manager's office said it will draft an assembly resolution for early-September consideration that would confirm borough priorities and a commitment to the local match if projects are advanced.
