Funding OK’d for 51 regional transportation projects

Listen to this article

A slate of $168 million in road, bridge, transit and multimodal transportation projects throughout the seven-county metro area is set to be awarded federal funds using controversial new criteria.

At its meeting last week, the Transportation Advisory Board, a 33-member board that advises the Metropolitan Council on transportation issues and distributes federal funding, approved a list of 51 projects out of 116 applications for the federal funds.

The board recommends funding for nearly 30 roadway projects, a reconstruction of the deteriorating Kellogg Avenue-Third Street Bridge in St. Paul, three future arterial bus rapid transit lines and bicycle/pedestrian amenities throughout the region. The slate of projects will be included in the region’s federally required Transportation Improvement Program for 2017-2019.

Last fall, the board approved new methods for awarding the federal funds to local projects and many worried that the new criteria would tip the scales in favor of the urban core at the expense of suburban counties. The new scores place a greater emphasis on affordable housing and benefits for disadvantaged populations.

The new process certainly affected Anoka County, which received the lowest amount of funding through the process this year. Three projects out of nine applications were funded for $8.74 million.

Historically, the county (which represents 11.6 percent of the regional population) has never received less funding than Carver or Scott counties, said Anoka County Commissioner Matt Look, who serves on the board.

Carver, which represents about 3.2 percent of the regional population, was awarded 5.3 percent of the funds. That difference shows the “new criteria has dramatically shifted from how it has played out in the past,” Look said.

Carver County was one of the most vocal opponents of the new criteria last fall for fear its projects and other needs in the suburban counties would be at a disadvantage. All five suburban metro counties pushed back against the regional solicitation and other transportation policies in an unprecedented joint meeting with the Met Council last fall.

Aside from the Anoka County example, the amount of funding allocated within a given county generally aligns with the county’s share of the regional population. Hennepin County, which represents 40 percent of the population, was awarded 47.8 percent of the funds — or about $80.7 million — for 19 projects.

At the meeting last week, the board considered three different funding scenarios based on the types of projects it wanted to support by mode and how high the projects scored. The board considered a baseline option and two other scenarios that emphasized roadway expansion and roadway reconstruction.

The funding option picked by the board has “geographical balance,” said Edina Mayor Jim Hovland, who chairs the Transportation Advisory Board.

The scenario was based on the midpoint of all the funding ranges per mode, which the board approved last month. The ranges were 48 percent to 68 percent of the funds for roadways, 22 percent to 32 percent of funds for transit and 10 percent to 20 percent of funds for bicycle and pedestrian projects.

As board members discussed the options, there was “a give and take,” Hovland said.

In the different scenarios, “one county might have gained a little bit at the expense of another,” he said. The group kept coming back and felt most comfortable with the “midpoint” option.

In addition to the new scoring criteria, the solicitation process was divided by mode, rather than by federal funding program.

In past years, cities and counties applied specifically for Congestion Mitigation Air Quality, Surface Transportation Program or Transportation Alternatives Program funds, but it was confusing because some projects were eligible for multiple funding sources.

This year, the board had more flexibility to determine how it wanted to use the funds, said Hovland. The board’s staff came up with scenarios based on the scores and the funding available to show what was possible.

This year, Hovland said the board’s selections will have an impact on areas of concentrated poverty — a major goal behind the new scoring criteria. Transportation investments tend to follow congestion, usually occurring in areas of prosperity. Without a specific focus on other areas, they can get left out.

“We don’t want to be leaving areas behind,” he said.

To address those issues, the process now weights projects on their community’s housing performance scores, which measures progress toward meeting affordable housing goals, and whether the project is in an area of racially concentrated poverty or serves disadvantaged populations.

The board should also have more flexibility to consider projects that are a high priority from a safety perspective, even if they don’t get high marks in the scoring process, Look said. A proposed railroad grade separation in Anoka County at Ramsey Boulevard didn’t make the cut this year — even though it’s a major safety priority for the county. When it comes to safety, projects are scored based on historic crash and fatality data, not potential for harm.

“We don’t really want to wait around to see a fuel car blow up on the train tracks before it scores well,” Look said.

Look said he would continue to push for a fairer process and figuring out a way to emphasize projects that are in areas of “pending devastation” and safety risks.

While Hovland said he believed the new process was fair, a small group will likely look at changes to the regional solicitation before the process starts again this fall.

“It was a good start,” he said. “It might require some tweaking here and there, yet.”

Note to readers: To see the full list of projects recommended by the Transportation Advisory Board, look for “Scenario A: Mid-Level Base Scenario” in this document.