American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
What is the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act?
On Tuesday, February 17, 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), a $787 billion package of spending and tax cuts designed to stimulate the national economy.
The final bill contains approximately $49 billion in transportation-related spending, including $27 billion for highways and $16.4 billion for public transit, including high speed rail.
One Maryland Transportation Recovery Program
The federal recovery legislation will provide at least $610 million for transportation projects across Maryland, all of which will be invested in maintaining and improving the state’s existing transit systems, roads and bridges.
Specifically, these funds will be distributed to a wide range of “fix-it first” projects and will be implemented in two phases:
- Phase One delivers $365 million in highway and transit federal formula-funded projects that have been advertised or will be ready for advertising by mid-March 2009 (highway) or late June 2009 (transit), supporting approximately 10,000 jobs. Example projects include bridge improvements, ADA compliant sidewalks, safety guardrails, hybrid bus purchases, MARC station improvements, and replacement buses for locally operated transit system (LOTS) programs.
- Phase Two will deliver $273 million in additional highway and transit federal formula-funded projects, supporting approximately 7,500 jobs, as well as other transportation projects that are funded through redistribution.
In addition, discretionary funding opportunities will be announced by the Office of the Secretary of Transportation (OST) within one year to include those projects of national and regional significance.
ARRA and the Baltimore Region
On Tuesday, February 24, 2009, the Baltimore Regional Transportation Board (BRTB) approved Resolution #09-17: Administrative modification to the 2008-2012 Baltimore Region Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) to Include Funding from the ARRA of 2009. An administrative modification is the process that the BRTB uses to make minor changes to projects currently in an approved and air quality conforming TIP.
The purpose of this administrative modification is twofold:
- To move the dates of the projects (listed in Resolution 09-17, Attachment 1) to the current year of the TIP. This is necessary in order to allow these projects to be advertised within the required 120 and 180 day time frames.
- To change the current funding source to reflect 100 percent funding through ARRA (P.L. 111-5).
The administrative modification is for an estimated $70 million in highway funds for resurfacing, safety, environmental and bridge projects as well as an estimated $126 million in transit funding for bus vehicle purchases, MARC station improvements, Metro system improvements and local bus facilities.
These projects are ready-to-go capital projects that have completed all pre-construction steps. In addition, these projects will not worsen the region’s air quality, delay the timely attainment of national air quality standards or interfere with implementation of any transportation control measures.
>> Download BRTB Resolution #09-17 (pdf, 12 kb)
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Last Updated: 09/24/2009