States should be instructed to ensure that small communities receive a slice of formula program funds in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for local roads, the National Association of Towns and Townships told the federal government.
The NATaT in a Dec. 19 comment letter on the IIJA urged the Federal Highway Administration to direct state departments of transportation to prioritize communities with populations under 5,000 for Surface Transportation Block Grant funds.
“This will help achieve the original legislative intent for adding local roads to STBG eligibility as it will direct those funds to the smaller local governments who have limited resources and access to federal transportation funds,” said the group, which represents more than 10,000 U.S. towns and townships.
The $1.1 trillion IIJA, enacted on Nov. 15, includes roughly $65 billion in STBG funds that will be distributed to state and local governments by the U.S. DOT, headed by Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Giving towns and townships access to STBG funds for local roads has long been a legislative priority for NATaT. In many states, towns oversee a big chunk of the local roads but see little in the way of federal support, the group said. In Illinois, for example, 53% of road miles are managed by towns or townships, which get less than 1% of federal funds. In Pennsylvania, towns or townships manage 64% of road miles but get less than 1% of federal funds. In North Dakota, it’s 67%, and towns and townships get zero federal funds.
The association has worked with Congress to push for a “realistic mechanism to direct federal funds to smaller units of governments.”
The 2020 Moving Forward Act, a surface transportation funding bill that ultimately failed to pass, originally allowed communities with a population of 5,000 or less to use STBG funds on local roads, NATaT said in the letter.
But a later amendment introduced by the late Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., increased the threshold to units with a population of 50,000 or less – and that language was ultimately carried into the IIJA.
“This change proved detrimental to NATaT’s efforts as the majority of our towns and townships have a population under 5,000 and will now have to compete with more communities for limited funds,” the letter says. “However, given this legislative history, we hope that FHWA will instruct state departments of transportation to prioritize communities under 5,000 population.”
The letter is one of 90 comments submitted so far to the USDOT on how best to implement the IIJA.