Federal transportation rescissions--MoDOT treats bike/ped funding fairly this time around

MoDOT guards the on-ramp

Recently the U.S. Department of Transportation announced a rescission in federal transportation funding.

This is a fairly routine occurrence, as the federal government takes back part of the funding that had previously been authorized to state DOTs.

Each time it happens, it leaves state DOTs scrambling to figure out how to fund the rescissions--which programs should give up some of their funding?

In the past, MoDOT has often chosen a method that unfairly targets the programs that typically fund bicycle and pedestrian transportation projects.  Their approach has been to take funding from various programs in proportion to their amount of unobligated funds.

This time around, MoDOT has adopted a much better method--calculating the rescission based simply on the size of the program.

Here is MoDOT's letter of explanation:

From: Amy Niederhelm, MoDOT Governmental Relations
Subject: Federal Transportation Rescissions for MO
 
Thank you for your recent email regarding the recent rescissions impacting Missouri and other states across the country.  Your email was forwarded to us by the Governor's Office.  Your email indicated that your group would like to ensure that these withholdings are done in a fair and equitable manner.  The Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) agrees with you. The department has worked hard to ensure that the withholdings are handled in just that manner.

The Federal Highway Administration recently rescinded about $2.2 billion of unobligated federal-aid funds apportioned to States. This equates to about $51.8 million to Missouri (MoDOT).  

The rescission was applied proportionately to States based on apportionments for the core programs of Interstate Maintenance, National Highway System, Bridge, Surface Transportation, Congestion Mitigation & Air Quality Improvement, Recreational Trails, Metropolitan Planning, Statewide Planning & Research, Transportation Enhancement and Equity Bonus.

Missouri's share of the rescission is $51,812,722 which was applied to Programs based on their relative share of apportionments;

Local Program (9%):
STP-Enhancement $1,247,205
BRO $1,771,542
CMAQ-Kansas City $210,936
CMAQ-St. Louis $1,573,690
Recreational Trails $117,315

Total $4,920,688

MoDOT Program (91%):
Bridge $46,892,034

No state projects will be delayed or cancelled.  MoDOT will work with the local programs to help them ensure their projects get completed - if needed - by possibly advancing future funding to them for their specific programs.

If you have any further questions please feel free to email or call.


Amy Niederhelm
Governmental Relations Specialist
Missouri Department of Transportation

The Gory Details
For the very curious, here is the reason MoDOT's current method is more fair, while it's previously used method of basing rescissions on the amount of unobligated funds was not as fair:

"Unobligated funds" are funds that have been authorized for spending by Congress, but which have not yet made it entirely through the process of being awarded to specific projects and readied to let the contract for the project.

Bicycle and pedestrian projects, because they tend to be small have a lot of technical hurdles to overcome in proportion to their size, and often involve a lot of different, overlapping jurisdictions (city, county, MoDOT, Corps of Engineers, utilities, levee districts, etc etc etc) often take longer to go through this process--meaning a higher proportion of funds in those programs are 'unobligated' at any given time.

Just for example, in a project like the I-29/I-35 Missouri River Bridge, MoDOT could obligate $245 million in funds just for one single, very large project. Spending that same amount of money on bicycle or pedestrian projects--like much-needed sidewalks, crosswalks, safety improvements, bike lanes, and so on--would likely involve 200-300 individual projects.

Of course it takes longer to move 200-300 individual small projects through the system than one large project.  And that means the funds for smaller projects tend to remain unobligated a little longer than funds dedicated to larger projects.

But that doesn't mean the smaller projects aren't good, aren't needed, and are not a wise use of funding.  

Kudos to MoDOT for treating all projects fairly this time around!