An Act relating to awards of federal funds to municipalities for road projects and to the statewide transportation improvement program; and providing for an effective date.

Prepared by: Senate Finance/Senator Torgerson
Updated: April 15, 1999

This bill provides the statutory authority for a Statewide Transportation Improvement Program and establishes a new Municipal Road Projects Program.

The new Municipal Road Projects Program (MRP) directly awards federal funds to municipalities for re-construction or construction projects that are eligible for federal funding. Priority is given to reconstruction of current state maintained roads when the municipality agrees to accept maintenance responsibility at the completion of the project. This will eliminate some of the project coordination effort currently required by the Department of Transportation. The municipality becomes responsible for all aspects of the project, including the match requirements for the federal funding. This will also reduce road maintenance costs when roads are transferred to a municipality.

This bill sets forth in statute the specific categories and expenditure percentages for each category that will be reported in the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP). The categories are:

• 55% = National Highway System (NHS)
• 36% = Community Transportation (CT)
• 9% = Trails & Recreational Access for Alaska (TRAAK)

The Community Transportation Program has further subcategories:

• 30% = Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Study (AMATS)
• 10% = Remote Roads
• 15% = State Highway System
• 15% = Gravel to Pavement^* Upgrade
• 10% = Reconstruction and Transfer
• 20% = Statewide Competitive

* The gravel to pavement program is a four year program and the bill provides for the repeal of that subcategory - the 15% would then be allocated to the Statewide Competitive subcategory, bringing its total from 20% to 35%.

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