Those who attended a town hall style meeting in Cooper Landing on Jan. 18 received an update from the Department of Transportation on funding for the Cooper Landing Bypass (Sterling Highway MP 45-60). Representing the DOT, newly appointed Central Region Director Sean Holland outlined the project’s current funding status and proposed funding options as well as provided updates on federal grant applications.
“We have either spent or have under contract about $500 million. That’s a lot of money to pay back if we had to,” Holland said to those in attendance. “We’ve developed an opportunity plan to fund the project. So, the latest transportation bill, which is the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act—IIJA—that includes many grant opportunities for specific pieces of work.”
On the topic of grants, in July the DOT announced it would begin exploring “discretionary grant opportunities and innovative financing” as alternative means of funding for the bypass. At that time, DOT Director of Communications, Shannon McCarthy, explained the sort of grants to which this referred;
“One of the [grants] that we’re interested in competing for with this project is what they call a ‘Mega Project.’ So, these [are for] really large projects that are difficult to finance, they spread over many years, which is exactly the scenario we’re talking about. We’ll go ahead and try to secure funding through that program. And if there are other eligibilities that we can go after, we’ll do that too.”
Holland’s update is that the grant application track has not been successful thus far, but that the process is not over. “With the grants [applied for], so far we have not been successful on one of them. I think they have one that’s still pending and then we had another one that we’re going to apply for in February.”
Another source of funding could come from funds reallocated by the federal government through the Federal Highway Administration. Holland elaborated on this, stating;
“Another funding opportunity that we have is the [Juneau Creek] bridge is almost entirely funded by what’s called the reappropriation. So, the federal fiscal year goes from October 1st to September 30th. Somewhere around August the FHWA will poll all the States and if they aren’t able to spend the money that they’ve been allocated and [that money] goes back into the pool and the FHWA looks around the country and sees who can spend that money and then they reallocate that funding.”
According to Holland, Alaska was reallocated more than $100 million last year, the majority of which went to the current funding for the Juneau Creek Bridge funding. Holland estimated that the state could see a similar reallocation this year. He called these estimates “solid.”
