Arizona officials confer with a notoriously congested stretch of desert highway through tribal land because the Wild Horse Pass Corridor, a label that is less about horses than the bustling casino by the identical name positioned just north of where the interstate constricts to 4 lanes.
With the Gila River Indian Community’s backing, the state allocated or raised about $600 million of a virtually $1 billion plan that might widen essentially the most bottleneck-inducing, 26-mile section of I-10 on the route between Phoenix and Tucson.
“Upset can be the best terminology,” Casa Grande Mayor Craig McFarland said of his response when he learned the project won’t receive one among the law’s first Mega Grants the U.S. Department of Transportation will announce this week. “We thought we had done an excellent job putting the proposal together. We thought we had checked all of the boxes.”
The historic federal investment in infrastructure has reenergized dormant transportation projects, but the talk over easy methods to prioritize them has only intensified within the 14 months since President Joe Biden signed the measure.
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The law follows a long time of neglect in maintaining the nation’s roads, bridges, water systems and airports. Research by Yale University economist Ray Fair estimates a pointy decline in U.S. infrastructure investment has caused a $5.2 trillion shortfall. The whole law totals $1 trillion, and it seeks to not only treatment that dangerous backlog of projects but in addition construct out broadband web nationwide and protect against damage brought on by climate change.
Among the money, nevertheless, has gone to latest highway construction — much of it from the nearly 30% increases Arizona and most other states are receiving over the subsequent five years within the formula funding they’ll use to prioritize their very own transportation needs.
For specific projects, lots of the most important awards available under the law are through various highly competitive grants. The Department of Transportation received around $30 billion price of applications for just the primary $1 billion in Mega Grants being awarded, spokesperson Dani Simons said.
One other $1 billion shall be available each of the subsequent 4 years before the funding runs out. Still, the primary batch has been closely watched for signals in regards to the administration’s preferences.
Jeff Davis, senior fellow on the Eno Center for Transportation, said it’s already clear that the Biden administration plans to direct a greater share of its discretionary transportation funding to “non-highway projects” than the Trump administration did. Nonetheless, with so rather more total infrastructure money to work with, Davis said, “a rising tide lifts all boats.”
For instance, one among the projects that the administration told Congress it had chosen for a Mega Grant will widen Interstate 10 — but in Mississippi, not Arizona. Davis said the department likely preferred the Mississippi project as a consequence of its significantly cheaper price tag. This 12 months’s Mega Grants mix three different award types right into a single application, one among which caters specifically to rural and impoverished communities.
Among the winning grants are for bridges, while others are for mass transit — including improvements to Chicago’s commuter train system and concrete casing for a rail tunnel in Midtown Manhattan.
Together with the nine projects chosen, transportation department staff listed seven others as “highly really helpful” — a distinction Davis said makes them clear front-runners to secure money next 12 months. Arizona’s I-10 widening effort was a part of a 3rd group of 13 projects labeled as “really helpful,” which Davis said could put them in contention for future funding unless they’re surpassed by even stronger applicants.
But such decisions remain largely subjective.
Advocates for regions akin to the Southwest, where the population is growing but more unfolded, argue that their need for brand new or wider highways is just as big of a national priority as a serious city’s need for more subway stations or bicycle lanes.
Arizona state Rep. Teresa Martinez, a Republican who represents Casa Grande on the southern end of the corridor, said she was livid when she heard from a congressional office that the administration might need turned down the I-10 project since it did not have enough “multimodal” components.
“What does that even mean?” she said. “…. They were seeking to fund projects which have bike paths and trailways as an alternative of a serious interstate?”
Testifying in March before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg assured Arizona Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly that he understood the state’s unique highway needs and that his department would not “stand in the best way of a capability expansion where it’s appropriate.”
Some Republicans, nevertheless, remain skeptical, partially as a consequence of a memo the Federal Highway Administration distributed in December 2021, a month after Biden signed the bill. The document suggested states should often “prioritize the repair, rehabilitation, reconstruction, alternative, and maintenance of existing transportation infrastructure” over latest road construction.
Although administration officials dismissed the memo as an internal communication, not a policy decision, critics alleged they were trying to bypass Congress and influence highway construction decisions traditionally left to states under their formula funding.
Last month the Government Accountability Office concluded the memo carried the identical weight as a proper rule, which Congress could challenge by passing a resolution of disapproval. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, the rating Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, pledged to write down one.
In accordance with figures the Federal Highway Administration provided to The Associated Press, 12 capacity-expansion projects have received funding through previous competitive grants for the reason that memo was issued. States even have used their formula funding toward 763 such projects totaling $7.1 billion.
As for the Arizona project, some state officials have expressed plans to maneuver ahead on their very own if they cannot secure federal money — although they don’t seem to be giving up on that, either. Considering that one crash can back up traffic for miles between the state’s two largest cities, they are saying it stays a top priority.
McFarland, the Casa Grande mayor, said perhaps the subsequent application will stress among the other components of the $360 million request besides the highway widening — including bike lanes that tribal leaders have long looked for among the overpasses.
“Should you read the tea leaves, you possibly can see where they’re at,” McFarland said. “… It is a competitive process. You do not all the time get it the primary time you ask for it. So, ask again.”
McMurray reported from Chicago. Associated Press author Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this story.
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