More Funding Opportunities for Transportation, Other Infrastructure Are Also Available
HARRISBURG – Earlier this week, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) announced $455.9 million in liquid fuels payments will be made available this year to help certified municipalities maintain their roads and bridges, according to Sen. Cris Dush, R-25.
There are 120,596 miles of public roads in Pennsylvania of which 73,141 miles are owned by roughly 2,560 municipalities and eligible for liquid fuels payments. Those same municipalities also manage more than 6,600 bridges longer than 20 feet.
A breakdown by county and local municipality of Municipal Liquid Fuels Program allocations, which this year represent a 1% increase compared to last year, can be found HERE. The funds are distributed to municipalities by formula, according to population and miles of roads.
To be eligible for liquid fuels, a roadway must be formally adopted as a public street by the municipality, meet certain dimension requirements, and be able to safely accommodate vehicles driving at least 15 mph – all the details can be found on PennDOT’s Municipal Liquid Fuels Program website.
PennDOT also announced the state will receive an additional $1.6 billion in federal infrastructure funding for bridge work, with 15% of the state’s funding committed to “off-system” local bridges.
Other sources of income for local municipalities include a $5 fee counties can assess for each vehicle registered to an address within the county, with those funds available to be used for locally-owned infrastructure. Twenty-seven counties have implemented this fee thus far, with $180.8 million collected and distributed to those counties between December 2015 and December 2021.
Local governments and other eligible entities may apply for low-interest loans from the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Bank which helps fund and accelerate transportation projects as well as spur economic development.
Additionally, the new federal infrastructure law contains at least 25 competitive funding opportunities available for local governments, with many of those options going beyond transportation needs.
CONTACT: Zack Ankeny