NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - A planned railroad overpass in North Little Rock has suffered a setback with the Federal Highway Administration pulling back more than $8.5 million in funding for the project.
City and regional planning officials believe the money will be available sometime this summer but acknowledge the federal money is no longer assured, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (https://bit.ly/1K7Kx64) reported.
Although the state Highway and Transportation Department “expects that the project can and will be reobligated in Summer 2015, those assurances have all been verbal and there is a new element of risk to the project as a result,” said a memorandum written by Metroplan officials to its board of directors.
Sandra Otto, the Arkansas division administrator for the Federal Highway Administration, said the agency is being stricter with the management of road and bridge construction projects that use federal dollars.
The problem happens when projects don’t progress quickly enough through various stages of construction, according to Otto. The money sits unused at a time when the federal Highway Trust Fund is running short of money and projected needs outpace what money is available.
“We’ve had to show more transparency, and we’ve had to be a little bit more diligent about managing the funds that we have so that we can show that if you give us more funds, we can use it in the appropriate way,” she said.
The overpass project is aimed at eliminating a street-level railroad crossing and collisions involving trains and vehicles. It was one of a dozen railroad overpass projects Metroplan envisioned beginning in the mid-1990s to make central Arkansas roads safer. Seven have been built since then.
Metroplan officials say no other projects are at risk of losing federal funding but warned its board that “projects for which construction bids have not been taken should be monitored closely.”
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Information from: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, https://www.arkansasonline.com
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