Legislature(2013 - 2014)SENATE FINANCE 532
01/22/2013 01:00 PM House TRANSPORTATION
| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| Presentations: Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (dotpf) Overview on Surface Transportation, Roads to Resources, and Map-21 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
JOINT MEETING
SENATE TRANSPORTATION STANDING COMMITTEE
HOUSE TRANSPORTATION STANDING COMMITTEE
January 22, 2013
1:02 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
SENATE TRANSPORTATION
Senator Dennis Egan, Chair
Senator Fred Dyson, Vice Chair
Senator Anna Fairclough
Senator Click Bishop
HOUSE TRANSPORTATION
Representative Peggy Wilson, Chair
Representative Doug Isaacson, Vice Chair
Representative Eric Feige
Representative Lynn Gattis
Representative Bob Lynn
Representative Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins
MEMBERS ABSENT
SENATE TRANSPORTATION
Senator Hollis French
HOUSE TRANSPORTATION
Representative Craig Johnson
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
Presentation: Department of Transportation and Public Facilities
(DOTPF) overview on surface transportation
- HEARD
Presentation: MAP-21
- HEARD
Presentation: Roads to Resources
- HEARD
PREVIOUS COMMITTEE ACTION
No previous action to consider
WITNESS REGISTER
KIM RICE, Deputy Commissioner
Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (DOTPF)
Juneau, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided presentation on surface
transportation issues.
MIKE VIGUE, Operations Manager
Division of Program Development
Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (DOTPF)
Juneau, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided presentation on MAP-21.
JEFF OTTESEN, Director
Division of Program Development
Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (DOTPF)
Juneau, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided financial background and other
commentary related to the MAP-21 presentation.
MURRAY WALSH, Special Assistant to the Commissioner and Manager
Road to Resources
Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (DOTPF)
Juneau, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided presentation on the Roads to
Resources initiative.
ACTION NARRATIVE
1:02:32 PM
CHAIR DENNIS EGAN called the joint meeting of the Senate and
House Transportation Standing Committees to order at 1:02 p.m.
Present at the call to order were Senators Dyson, Fairclough,
Bishop and Chair Egan; Representatives Isaacson, Feige, Gattis,
Kreiss-Tomkins and Chair Peggy Wilson.
^Presentations: Department of Transportation and Public
Facilities (DOTPF) Overview on Surface Transportation, Roads to
Resources, and MAP-21
Presentation: Department of Transportation
and Public Facilities (DOTPF)Overview on
Surface Transportation, Roads to Resources, and MAP-21
1:06:18 PM
CHAIR EGAN said the first presentation would be an overview of
surface transportation by the Department of Transportation and
Public Facilities' deputy commissioner Kim Rice.
1:06:41 PM
KIM RICE, Deputy Commissioner, Department of Transportation and
Public Facilities (DOTPF), Juneau, Alaska, gave her professional
background saying she graduated from the University of Alaska
Fairbanks (UAF) and had been with department since 1979, but had
first started working with the state in 1973 as a file clerk at
the Ferry System. She had also worked in the department as a
bridge engineer, project manager, right-or-way chief,
preconstruction engineer and, most recently, director of the
Division of Design and Construction.
In providing an overview of the highways, she said her intent
was to cover their undergirding statutes, their mission, how
they are organized and where they are on their capital and
operating budgets; she would also talk about the department's
strengths and challenges.
1:08:40 PM
MS. RICE said the department plans, designs, constructs and
maintains all state modes of transportation and facilities.
Their mission is in Title 44, but Title 19 tells them how to do
their job. Their mission is broader than most other states'.
Their purpose as a highway department is to be capable of
carrying out a highway planning, construction and maintenance
program. They are responsible for the network of highways
linking together cities and communities throughout the state.
They support the development of commerce and industry in the
state as well as extraction and utilization of its resources and
providing access to its citizens.
1:10:00 PM
Because the department uses so much federal funding, the Code of
Federal Regulations in Title 23 undergirds and guides a lot of
their processes. As she rose up in the department, Ms. Rice
remarked that she knew more about what was in the Code of
Federal Regulations than she needed to know about what was in
Title 19 in order to keep them out of trouble.
MS. RICE said the department's mission is to provide for the
safe and efficient moving of people and goods, to provide access
to state services and to open opportunities for exploration and
development. She emphasized that she liked the word "service"
because it meant serving the people and developing the
infrastructure that provides access for them.
1:11:16 PM
She said over the last few years they had spent a lot of time
thinking about "core values" and realized that one of the things
that has kept her at the department is the integrity of the
people she works with. Positive regard for colleagues is
encouraged there as well as serving the public.
She explained that the department is arranged in two main
pieces: regions and headquarters. Headquarters is the policy,
procedures and broad programs and program development. Regions
are the boots on the ground: maintaining roads and building
projects. The groups interface so what one does affects the
other.
1:13:21 PM
MS. RICE said the state has three geographic regions: Northern,
Central and Southeast. The Northern Region has the largest land
mass and the most roads; the Central Region has the most
population and the most dual lanes and traffic volumes and
Southeast has the Marine Highways and ports. Each region is
structured differently.
The state national highway system (NHS) has 2,577 center-line
miles of road. She explained that Alaska has an exemption from
meeting the interstate standards, but their goal should be to
bring that road up to those standards for the safety of the
traveling public. Overall, DOTPF owns and maintains 5,601 miles
of roads/highways varying from interstate type facilities to
two-lane dirt roads, 805 bridges and 7 weigh stations.
She said that federal regulation requires them to inspect all
the public highway bridges in the state every two years. They
have 84 statewide maintenance stations, some of which are shared
with other facilities (air transportation, surface and water),
and there is an advantage to creating a main DOT over individual
departments, because for example, in many villages the same
person plowing your street may also plow your airport.
MS. RICE said this year's proposed operating budget is $635
million. About 20 percent of that is direct boots on the ground
highway maintenance money that is tracked through H&A (Highways
and Aviation). Their capital budget is close to $1 million. The
highway program itself is proposed to be $.5 million (just the
federal aid program not including the state capital program).
1:17:41 PM
She showed a distribution graph showing how federal funding has
fluctuated over the years, but said that overall the capital
program is close to $.5 billion annually. To her knowledge, Ms.
Rice said they had not turned back any money to the federal
government, but they had returned money to the state
legislature. They are always told getting the program out is
their number one mission and their number one job, and they have
been highly successful at that even though they have the
greatest challenges in terms of climate and weather conditions.
For example she flew to Juneau last night, only she went to
Sitka instead and came back this morning. That's the kind of
stuff their contractors and engineers have to deal with, but she
believed the department has the competence to deliver its
programs and she appreciated the opportunity to serve.
MS. RICE said they always have challenges:
· Balancing the budget while trying to meet all the needs
that are out there, despite changing conditions and
expectations. "Scope creep" is common because there is
always something more that can be fixed while you are
there.
· Capital dollars are very dependent upon federal funds;
dollars are not indexed to need or construction cost. Not
being met:
-Rural essential needs
-Population growth demands
-Safety issues
· Staffing and aging workforce issue (retirement of the baby
boomers)
· Environmental issues continue to grow; new issues are being
raised and longer process timelines are needed (time is
money in the development process).
1:21:52 PM
MS. RICE showed a slide of the many federal regulations that
have to be addressed while doing project and program development
saying that MAP-21 can now be added to that.
1:22:21 PM
SENATOR BISHOP congratulated her on her new position in the
department. He said his pet peeve was "mission creep" and asked
if going through all these protocols adds to the value of the
asphalt. From 1900 to 1960 the state had five agencies and now
there are over 70 checks and balances; the state could get a lot
more bang for its buck and more lane miles paved if the
regulatory process could be streamlined.
MS. RICE said the biggest challenge and opportunity they face is
the new federal authorization. She explained that a new bill
comes out every six years. She provided website links for DOTPF
information sources saying there was a list of projects with
websites on the DOT website.
1:24:30 PM
SENATOR DYSON thanked her for her presentation and asked if the
permafrost temperature is rising and if the roads are being
degraded in the Northern Region because of it. He was glad she
was paying attention.
MS. RICE replied that she had seen a couple of pictures recently
that people are attributing to that possibility. She had read it
had gone up a half degree, but she wasn't an expert. The
permafrost base is being monitored and people speculate about
what will happen to the road bases if the permafrost melts.
1:27:46 PM
MIKE VIGUE, Operations Manager, Division of Program Development,
Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (DOTPF),
Juneau, AK, introduced himself.
JEFF OTTESEN, Director, Division of Program Development,
Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (DOTPF),
Juneau, AK, briefed the committee on Mr. Vigue's background. He
came to them about three years ago from the State of Maine where
he worked for the Federal Highway Administration as the
financial officer; prior to that he was with Maine DOT and ran
their Transportation and Community and System Preservation
(TCSP) program. Prior to that he was with Alaska DOT and was one
of their junior planners. He has had quite a lot of experience,
especially with Federal Highways and the state is lucky to have
him.
MR. VIGUE said he would provide an overview of MAP-21, the
current federal transportation policy that became effective on
October 1, 2013. It's a two-year bill, which is a little bit
different than the five-year bills in the past: passed in the
90s, ISTEA was for six years; TEA-21 was for five years and
SAFETEA-LU was for five years. Now we have MAP-21 for only two
years. It gives the state some stability but not as much as in
the past.
1:30:42 PM
Slide 4 indicated annual funding levels provided by Congress to
the state through the Federal Highway Administration. SAFETEA-LU
was in purple; the blue column showed formula funding, money the
state of Alaska gets based on number of vehicle miles traveled
and contributions to the Federal Highway Trust Fund based on
fuel taxes; and the red was earmarks and set-aside funds.
1:32:07 PM
SENATOR DYSON remembered significant financial constraints in
2005 and said he suspected there was a pretty strong correlation
between oil prices and the budget deficit/surplus.
1:33:03 PM
MR. VIGUE said one of the reasons MAP-21 is a two-year bill is
that Congress was unable to solve the problem of revenue in the
Highway Trust Fund. So it relies on general fund (GF) money
being transferred from the US Treasury into the Highway Trust
Fund in addition to the surplus in the account for the leaking
underground storage tanks. For the two years, about $19 billion
had to be transferred from sources outside of the Highway Trust
Fund into it to balance the bill. Congress had to do that in
2006 and 2008, also, because the Highway Trust Fund did not have
enough money to sustain the level of funding that SAFETEA-LU
provided. He said MAP-21 has significant new policies and cited
streamlining in program areas and in the way funding comes to
the department as examples.
1:34:24 PM
MR. VIGUE said the highest amount of funding Alaska received for
one year was $520 million and they are looking at getting about
$485 million for 2013 and expecting a very small increase to
maybe $488 or $490 million in 2014. He reported that transit
funding was about $4 million less in 2013 than in 2012. In the
past, Alaska had received a set-aside of $10 million for the
Ferry program, and that went away. A new formula was put in
place, but they didn't know what the results of it would be.
CHAIR EGAN asked how the Vessel Replacement Fund gets integrated
with that. He thought there had been a federal match at some
point in time.
MR. OTTESEN explained that the Vessel Replacement Fund has been
used as a source of general funds for a general fund ferry that
was not following federal rules, so there were no federal funds
involved in those decisions at all.
MR. VIGUE said the money the state is getting from federal
Highways has done a lot of the smaller projects the ferry system
needs like maintaining terminals and repairing vessels. He noted
that they had recently put out a bid for repowering the M/V
Columbia.
CHAIR PEGGY WILSON explained that the reason the state had used
general funds instead of federal funds is because it could be
done cheaper and with less red tape.
MR. OTTESEN added that when you don't use federal funds you're
not stuck with the federal rule book and you can do procurement
favoring Alaskan vendors like the Ketchikan Shipyard.
MR. VIGUE said they had noticed that MAP-21 was a resetting of
the federal priorities putting much more emphasis on the
national highway system (NHS). A new program was created called
the National Highway Performance Program (NHPP). He added that
slightly less than 60 percent of our federal money was dedicated
to the National Highway System (NHS); that includes the
interstate system, the National Highway System and Strategic
Highway Network, and multi-modal connectors that connect
airports to ports and that sort of thing.
He said the Highway Safety Program has almost doubled in size
and has new performance standards under the NHPP. The Federal
Highway Administration has started to reach out to an
organization of all the states to put some meat on the bones of
what the performance standards will be. And there has been more
focus on the urban areas with populations greater than 200,000,
which in Alaska means the Anchorage area.
1:39:00 PM
REPRESENTATIVE ISAACSON asked if this bill will be stable for
two years or will it go down next year.
MR. VIGUE answered that it will be stable for two years; the
department will get funding in 2014 that is very similar to
2013. Anything past that is an uncertainty.
REPRESENTATIVE ISAACSON said to him MAP-21 represents a threat
to the DOT's ability to meet the needs of projects on the plate
now and asked if the legislature has to do something this year
to allow them to make more efficient use of the money.
MR. VIGUE said that MAP-21 is a stop-gap that Congress will have
to address because there are a huge number of needs out there
and not nearly enough funding to cover them all.
MR. OTTESEN said the Highway Trust Fund is predominantly funded
through gasoline and diesel taxes and because of ever higher
standards for mileage and moving to alternative fuels, the tax
yield per vehicle is going down. Conversely, there are more
vehicles producing wear and tear on the highway system. So there
is a disconnect between the use of the system and the funding
stream for the Highway Trust Fund.
CHAIR EGAN asked if Alaska has one of the lowest gas taxes in
the nation.
MR. OTTESEN answered yes, but there is no real connection
between a state gas tax dollar and what comes to DOTPF. He was
speaking to the Highway Trust Fund and the federal component tax
that feeds it. The state gas tax goes into the general fund and
doesn't come into the program directly.
1:44:42 PM
REPRESENTATIVE KREISS-TOMKINS asked if the state had considered
a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax structure.
MR. OTTESEN replied no, but several other states are looking
into that idea. Oregon is the leader in finding a new way to
measure the use of the highway system in order to charge a fee.
1:45:28 PM
MR. VIGUE said MAP-21 narrowed funding to go to the NHS but at
the same time they also expanded the system to include principal
arterials, a functional class of how a road is expected to
operate, and that added 90 miles to the mileage attributed to
the Alaska NHS. That is important, because part of the funding
formula is the number of lane miles on the NHS. So the more
lanes you have, in theory, the more funding you will get. Fifty-
seven percent of our federal funding is dedicated to the NHS; 27
percent is focused on lower tier roads, which means anything
under a principal arterial such as miner arterial or a major
collector. He said a lot of the roads in Juneau are not NHS. So
a significant number of miles have a smaller amount of funding
available for them.
He said 7 percent of the funding is directed to safety under the
Highway Safety Improvement Program, and that almost doubled in
size from SAFETY-LU to MAP-21. In addition, there are sanction
funds, which means that because Alaska doesn't have an open
container law and a repeat offender law it gets sanctioned, the
sanction being that NHS and STP funds go over to safety. That
almost doubles the safety program again, so it will be very
large in the next few years.
CHAIR PEGGY WILSON asked how much money would be gained by
putting those laws in place.
MR. OTTESEN answered that the sanction doesn't take money away;
it changes the program it goes to. If Alaska changed its safety
laws to match the federal requirement, it would remain in the
two other categories of STP and NHS, which get 5 percent each.
CHAIR EGAN asked if Egan Drive is a lower tier road.
MR. OTTESEN answered no; it is part of the NHS. So, it's well
funded. Douglas Highway is a lower tier road as is Mendenhall
Loop and Glacier Highway until you get to Don Abel's.
MR. VIGUE said the sanction money amounts to about $22 million
annually. He showed a map of NHS in Alaska giving them an idea
of what is eligible for those NHS dollars. A pie chart showed
$237 million in NHS funding for 2013 on one side and 2577 miles
of NHS road on the other indicating that 18 percent of the road
miles were getting 57 percent of the money. The next largest pot
was Surface Transportation Program (STP) funding at $109
million; the smaller pots of funding were for things like
safety, congestion mitigation, air quality, planning, and
transportation alternatives.
1:51:09 PM
REPRESENTATIVE ISAACSON asked if that 50 percent of federal
funding is still constrained to the 18 percent of our roads.
MR. VIGUE answered yes, but this doesn't deal with the roads to
resources program, which has been funded with just state money
so far.
REPRESENTATIVE ISAACSON said he just wanted to make it clear
that all local roads are not receiving the federal money. If
we're receiving 57 percent federal funding, that would free up
some state money to be leveraged for state roads.
MR. VIGUE responded that would be possible.
CHAIR EGAN asked how a community like Elfin Cove, Angoon or
Tenakee fits in.
MR. VIGUE asked him to hold on to that question while he
explained the allocation for STP. In the past these funds were
received in one pot, and they could be allocated based on
priorities. So, to answer his question there is a process to be
followed in putting the STP together where their regional
planners go out to the municipalities and the communities and
ask for solicitation of project proposals. A village like Angoon
would fill out a form for a project proposal and work with
regional planners to make sure everything was correct; that
project would get scored against other similar projects using a
criterion that is set out in state regulation. The projects get
ranked by score, and projects are selected based on the highest
score and how much funding is available. That process is still
in place; the only dilemma is that they have less money now
because of the way MAP-21 is structured (less STP money
available to fund those kinds of projects).
He explained that MAP-21 also takes away a provision that
exempted Alaska and Hawaii from having to sub-allocate STP money
by population. Now only 50 percent of the money is flexible for
any area in the state and then four other pots of money are
based on population. The funding categories are: for areas of
population greater than 200,000 (Anchorage), for places greater
than 5,000 but less than 200,000 (Fairbanks, Juneau, Soldotna,
Ketchikan, Kodiak, Sitka and Palmer/Wasilla), and $21 million
for places less than 5,000 (a huge area of the state).
1:56:03 PM
CHAIR EGAN asked if Petersburg that has 2,000 residents, and
Skagway and Tenakee with 100 residents would all be in the same
pot.
MR. VIGUE answered yes.
MR. OTTESEN added that nearly 200,000 miles of state highway are
in that same pot along with over half the bridges and many ferry
terminals. So, it's a huge list of needs competing for hardly
enough money to do two or three significant projects.
CHAIR EGAN asked if that was all because of the MAP-21
legislation.
MR. OTTESEN replied it is for two reasons: one is that it
reduced the amount of money going to STP in general and because
it then further subdivided it by these population definitions
which had never been in place before.
1:57:28 PM
CHAIR PEGGY WILSON asked if the feds do Anchorage Metropolitan
Area Transportation System (AMATS) and Fairbanks Metropolitan
Transportation System (FMATS) for towns with certain
populations.
1:57:34 PM
MR. VIGUE responded that the federal legislation requires
allowing large urban areas to form Metropolitan Planning
Organizations (MPO) so Anchorage named itself AMATS and
Fairbanks named itself FMATS. But in federal language Anchorage
is a Transportation Management Area, which is like a
metropolitan planning organization on steroids, and only FMATS
is an official MPO. Previous authorizing language used
populations of 50,000 or more. That is why Juneau with a
population of 30,000 was turned down when it tried to form
JMATS.
AMATS has been around for a while and FMATS was created after T-
21 in the early 2000s. Federal law provides MPO funds for those
organizations to do regional planning.
1:58:51 PM
REPRESENTATIVE FIEGE asked if the funding has fluctuated from
less intensive management to more intensive management on the
part of the feds or does MAP-21 represent an increasing
willingness on the part of the federal government to micro
manage how Alaska spends its highway dollars.
MR. VIGUE replied that he thought MAP-21 was a restating of the
federal priority towards the NHS. He explained that the original
concept of building the Interstate System was for national
defense; so the National Highway Performance Program (NHPP) is
designed to maintain the Interstate System, the NHS (which is
supposed to be connecting the different modes of
transportation), and the Strategic Highway Network (a national
defense network for the Department of Defense). As they have
shifted towards the NHS and safety, the change in funding can be
seen. The feds also want more oversight and have increased the
amount of data reporting required by the state.
REPRESENTATIVE FIEGE asked with less money coming from the feds
in mind, if there is enough money in the state budget for the
state to backfill some areas that aren't getting as much federal
funding because of the new allocation.
MR. OTTESEN answered that Commissioner Kemp said last week that
their greatest challenge is dealing with the shortfall as it
relates to STP funding to local governments. And the DOT doesn't
have another source of money to turn to to solve that problem;
that is the province of the legislature. They don't have a
solution but wanted to bring it to their attention. The last STP
was so different that the state did not call communities for
nominations because it didn't have the financial capacity to do
justice to them.
2:03:09 PM
SENATOR FAIRCLOUGH asked if there are more than two MPOs and if
the MatSu qualified under the previous criterion.
MR. OTTESEN answered no and explained that the Census Bureau
determines whether or not there are new MPOs when it does its
10-year census. It's a function of two numbers: one is
population and the other is density, and MatSu does exceed
50,000, but they don't have the density needed to qualify. They
probably will after the 2020 census.
SENATOR FAIRCLOUGH said there is no new money for MPOs; the
State of Alaska is given a sum and a percentage goes to the
MPOs.
MR. OTTESEN answered that was correct and explained that the
slice on the chart for places between 5,000 and 200,000 is a
little under $16 million and half of that goes to Fairbanks,
because they are an MPO. The other communities on the list are
basically competing for that money through the STP process.
Simple math indicates there is less than $1 million per
community per year, and many of those communities are used to
getting $6 to $8 million a year out of the STP.
SENATOR FAIRCLOUGH said her point was that our country is $16
trillion in debt and that has to be made up somewhere and that
is going to be through making some hard decisions.
CHAIR PEGGY WILSON said the FMATS and AMATS is not a separate
pot of money that comes from the feds; the FMATS and AMATS comes
off the top and what is left over is what gets divvied out to
the rest of the communities.
MR. OTTESEN said that was correct.
2:06:44 PM
MR. VIGUE said the $20 million sub-allocation is for AMATS, that
is a federal calculation, not something that DOT did.
CHAIR PEGGY WILSON asked how much goes to Anchorage and
Fairbanks.
MR. VIGUE replied that the $20 million sub-allocation goes to
Anchorage because it is the only community that qualifies with a
population over 200,000. The only place that part of the federal
highways money can be spent in Alaska is in the Anchorage area.
CHAIR PEGGY WILSON asked how much AMATS would normally get.
MR. OTTESEN replied that they were getting a little over $30
million prior to this bill; now it's just over $20 million. The
emphasis changed from local needs to the NHS and to safety.
2:08:48 PM
CHAIR PEGGY WILSON asked if there is any possibility to exempt
Hawaii and Alaska because they are such new states and hadn't
gotten the help the older states got in their younger years.
MR. OTTESEN answered that people spending time in Washington,
D.C., have said exemptions were being struck rather than being
created and anything with Alaska in it was getting taken out.
REPRESENTATIVE ISAACSON asked him to discuss the $47 million for
any area of the state.
MR. OTTESEN answered that money right now is dedicated to three
big needs:
1. The many required programs under the legislation like the
nearly 1,000 bridges inspections that have to take place every
other year. This STP funding is one of the big sources of how
that work gets done. They also have to pay off GARVI bonds from
2002, and rather than taking it out of the smaller slices at the
expense of the smaller communities it gets taken out of the
statewide pot, which is for the common good. The data collection
requirement under MAP-21 has gone up intensively, because it's a
performance program. They have to collect data and have
management systems. There really is no other place for those
costs to be coming out of. Right now those funds are over-
subscribed.
2. Bridges is a second thing and over 500 bridges in the state
are unfunded except for the blue portion. They have been really
putting an emphasis on bridges for almost a decade; we're making
progress, and the NHS is in pretty good shape, but you can work
really hard and still go backwards. Last year 9 bridges were
taken off the deficient list but 14 were added.
3. Finally, there are 1,600 miles of state highway that are not
NHS, but they are still important and serve all corners of the
state.
2:15:11 PM
MR. VIGUE said another new program in MAP-21 that evolved out of
the ashes of some previous programs is the Transportation
Alternatives Program. It basically takes the Transportation
Enhancements Program, which has been in federal legislation
since the early 1990s - the Scenic Byways Program, the Safe
Routes to School Program (new with SAFETY-LU) and the
Recreational Trails Program - and merged them all together into
this Transportation Alternatives Program. The one thing that is
different about this is that the Recreational Trails Program
gets an automatic allocation at the '09 level; and that program
is managed by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in
Alaska.
He explained that the Transportation Alternatives funding comes
to the state in a very similar way the Surface Transportation
Program (STP) funds come and that is through sub-allocation by
population.
2:16:41 PM
REPRESENTATIVE ISAACSON said he sat on the North Richardson
Scenic Byways Advisory Board and asked if there is dedicated
money for scenic byways that could make improvements for things
such as restrooms and pullouts.
MR. VIGUE answered in the past there was a small dedicated pot
of money that was competed for nationally. So, every year
someone on their staff would solicit nominations from the Scenic
Byways Committees, score them and send them to FHW Headquarters
in D.C. that would determine which projects had the highest
rating and would get funded. Alaska has had success with that
program seeing anywhere from 2 to 6 discretionary grants. MAP-21
eliminated that program as well as the federally funded clearing
house that was based in Duluth, Minnesota, that had resource
people on hand to help byway committees develop their vision for
the corridor. Certain aspects of the Scenic Byway Program are
eligible under the Transportation Alternatives Program, but it
has such a small amount of money and some odd rules. First is
the sub-allocation by population, and they also have something
called a definition of "eligible entities," and the states and
MPOs are not eligible, meaning that the state and the MPO cannot
sponsor a project for any of these programs whether it's a
bike/ped facility or a safe routes to school-type project. He
said they are still trying to understand how this program is
going to be managed. AMATS is going to get $775,000 and you
can't build a lot of sidewalk with that. Places with populations
of less than 5,000, a huge portion of the state, get $814,000.
The previous programs provided more flexibility to use the funds
and get projects built.
REPRESENTATIVE ISAACSON asked if any specific projects are being
threatened.
MR. VIGUE answered that they are still trying to figure that
out. Some of the projects are still moving forward because they
have some old Transportation Enhancement (TE) funds.
REPRESENTATIVE ISAACSON asked if projects in the pipeline could
be completed.
MR. VIGUE answered yes.
CHAIR PEGGY WILSON asked him to share that information with the
chairs as he finds it out.
2:17:11 PM
SENATOR DYSON said it would be valuable for him to know how much
is spent on transportation in each area juxtaposed against the
population. Some areas spend more on ferries, breakwaters and
docks and he wasn't sure how much GF money is spent in those
districts or how they could be distinguished. However, they
should be operating from criteria based on need with safety
coming first.
MR. OTTESEN said they have three or four excellent data bases on
the condition and the use of our system. They know where the
crashes occur, their severity and causes. The same is true of
traffic volumes, average speeds and a count and type of
vehicles. They know the conditions of the bridges and pavements.
They use that type of data to identify projects, and it's not
always mindful of which district gets the most money that year,
but it is the rational approach for something as important as a
highway system, which is where the economy happens.
He said the department keeps track of election districts, but
unfortunately those are transitory and change shape and number.
Right now they are starting to geocode projects and the beauty
of a GIS location is that you can change districts all you want,
but the work will still be revealed going forward. However that
would be hard to do in retrospect.
MR. VIGUE said they could look at some of the websites in Ms.
Rice's presentation, because a lot of project information is out
there.
SENATOR DYSON said it would be useful to know how much capital
money had been spent in each area and what is being spent per
capita in each area for routine maintenance.
CHAIR PEGGY WILSON said it's obvious that the state is going to
get less and less money from the feds and asked if there is any
way to connect with another department, like DNR, or when they
talk about roads to resources, because if we don't have roads to
resources we won't be able to develop some areas to get more
money coming in.
2:30:22 PM
MR. OTTESEN said the short answer is they are looking at a
private partnership tool in concert with AIDEA known as 3P, that
essentially lets the resource owners help to pay for these roads
and other access facilities, whether it be a harbor or some
other feature. They don't have to put the money up front, but it
is an operating expense at a time of revenue, which is what they
prefer, rather than a capital expense years prior to revenue.
It's a good partnership, and the money is essentially off the
state books; it doesn't have to come at the expense of education
and roads and all the other things the legislature struggles to
find funding for.
MR. VIGUE said slide 15 showed the previous funding for ferries;
it received the $10 million set-aside plus the ability to
compete in the discretionary program, both of which have gone
away and been replaced under MAP-21 with $67 million to be used
nationally for ferry service that has a formula for preference;
45 percent of the funds are based on the number of vehicles
carried, 35 percent of the allocation is based on the number of
route miles and 20 percent is based on the number of passengers.
They haven't heard from federal highways how that calculation
would work for Alaska, but 35 percent allocated by route miles
should serve us well.
He said that MAP-21 eliminated the Forest Highway Program and
Shakwak funding (the money that the Federal Highway
Administration provided directly to the Yukon government to
maintain the Haines and Alaska Highways). He explained that the
Forest Highway Program that was previously dedicated to the
Tongass and Chugach National Forests was replaced by a smaller
program that is open to all federal land management agencies.
2:33:55 PM
Alaska used to get $9 million administered by the Western
Federal Lands Office in Vancouver, Washington, with input from
Alaska and the Forest Service. That program has changed to be
something called the Federal Land Access Program and instead of
$9 million it's $7 million; and instead of just being the Forest
Service it's all federal land management agencies - BLM, Fish
and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and Forest Service
- all have the ability to compete for that $7 million.
CHAIR PEGGY WILSON asked if those are the funds that put paved
roads on Prince of Wales (POW).
MR. OTTESEN replied yes, as well as on many other areas of
Southeast and the Chugach. But the Prince of Wales road system
owes its existence to the program, and its demise is
unfortunate.
CHAIR EGAN asked if places like Gustavus and Denali will be
competing for this money.
MR. OTTESEN answered yes and they have already seen a lot of
interest. He explained that his first call for projects will
occur in a month or two. A three-member board makes the
decisions; one member is from the Forest Highway group in
Vancouver, Washington, himself and Cathy Wasserman, representing
local governments for Alaska. So, two Alaskans are on the
committee. Communities can nominate projects, too; he already
feels a tension between the federal agencies and local needs.
2:36:29 PM
MR. VIGUE said they see a similar trend developing in terms of
providing more information to Federal Highways under MAP-21. The
state will have to collect more data and provide a significant
number of NHS performance measures. It should begin soon and
will include pavement, bridge condition, safety (fatalities and
serious injury crashes), freight mobility and congestion. By the
time MAP-21 expires they will know what all of them are. So one
way to look at MAP-21 is that it is the blueprint for what they
think they are going to do next time - and hopefully next time
the the funding scenario will be figured out and the states get
a five or six year bill instead of the two-year bill.
2:37:56 PM
SENATOR BISHOP asked if more federal reporting will "get us any
more lane miles" and commented that "at the end of the day they
will dream up another new mix design so every heavy highway
contractor in Alaska has to buy a whole crushing spread."
MR. VIGUE explained that the feds will set national performance
measures and then the state will have the flexibility to set the
target that they are going to try to reach. But if we don't meet
those targets there are penalties. For instance, the one
performance measure they know of has to do with the percentage
of bridge deck that is on structurally deficient bridges. Right
now that is set at 10 percent. If more than 10 percent of the
total bridge deck on the NHS is on structurally deficient
bridges, then they force you to take some of your NHS money and
put it on NHS bridges. And if you still don't meet it, there's a
further penalty which could raise the match requirements
(currently at 90/10) by as much as 40 percent.
MR. VIGUE said MAP-21 also included some streamlining efforts
that will hopefully enable the department to deliver projects
faster. The most intriguing ones are the environmental
streamlining provisions, one of which is that we should be able
to use categorical exclusions more often than doing
environmental impact statements, because they are the simplest
fastest processes available.
He said another goal of MAP-21 was to streamline the process of
managing the program. There used to be over 80 funding pots and
now they are down to the 30s. Other funding categories in MAP-21
are CMAQ (congestion, mitigation, air quality), which increased
slightly overall; Fairbanks gets a fair amount of this money to
try to address its air quality issues. Highway safety projects
are being well-funded and the state gets about $26 million in
Highway Safety Improvement Program and another $1.1 million to
take care of rail highway crossings, put up signals and lights
and fix the surface so it's not so rough to cross, and the $21.1
million of hazard elimination (the sanction money that goes to
the safety program, because Alaska doesn't have a repeat
offender and an open container law). So, Alaska will have a
substantial safety program over the next few years. Urban
planning funds are provided to the two MPOs and they had a
slight increase.
2:44:15 PM
MR. VIGUE said overall they think federal funding remains
consistent with the SAFETY-LU average. It's not in the same
spendable categories, but it has been shifted around and focused
on NHS and safety. It's about the same amount of money, but
fewer funding categories that are more restrictive. They reduced
Surface Transportation Program (STP) funding and sub-allocated
it by population. It will be necessary to use a lot of the STP
funding on bridges where there is no longer a dedicated bridge
program. With the NHS focus, there is less funding available for
lower class roads, which includes the Alaska Highway System.
Safety funding is significantly increased, and the
Transportation Alternatives Program has significant challenges;
they are still waiting to hear what the performance measures
are. The feds have also required a transportation asset
management system, which will feed into the performance
measures, and the department is actively working to put that
together.
2:45:37 PM
REPRESENTATIVE ISAACSON said he was concerned about the loss of
Alaska Highway money and asked if he had talked to his
counterparts in Canada to see what their plans are for
maintaining those Shakwak roads.
MR. VIGUE answered that he had met with counterparts at Yukon
DOT and they were very disappointed that the funding is no
longer available, but he wasn't sure what their plans were. A
meeting was set up with them next week. They were very involved
in the debate on MAP-21 in Washington, D.C. to try to protect
that funding.
CHAIR EGAN asked him to keep the committee informed on that
status.
SENATOR DYSON added that some Canadian members of Parliament
were here today and that the Yukon Territory was concerned
because it has less than 30,000 people. That highway was built
during the war to have a land-based route; it is a huge safety
issue "like suspenders" for Alaska. But for the Yukon it's a
huge asset, and they don't have the kind of resources that other
places have to do it. That highway runs through some very
mineralized areas, and without the transportation links they
don't work.
CHAIR EGAN said it's shameful that so much money had been spent
improving the Alaska Highway over the last decades and now we're
going to let it deteriorate again. It doesn't make sense. He
thanked them for their presentation and invited Mr. Walsh to
present Roads to Resources.
2:48:47 PM
MURRAY WALSH, Special Assistant to the Commissioner and Manager,
Road to Resources, Department of Transportation and Public
Facilities (DOTPF), said the roads to resources initiative began
during the Murkowski administration as a way to focus attention
on resource development and one of its most crucial needs,
surface access.
He said these funds had previously been used on smaller projects
that were affordable by the state, but now that is being
expanded to larger projects that would help fill the TAPS,
create jobs, and increase commerce.
Their guideline is if DOT does the initial permitting and
environmental work, an inexpensive road could be built to some
remote location to make a mining project possible. Then they
would develop a long-range public private partnership with the
developer, miner or petroleum developer, who would pay for the
road in the long term, the final road being paid for by the
beneficiary.
MR. WALSH said once the road is there it can be improved as
other beneficiaries come along and as traffic and development
make it possible. If there are lots of beneficiaries like on the
Klondike Highway, tolls can be charged to industrial users,
particularly those who drive overweight rigs. Last year four
projects were authorized in the 2013 budget:
1. A 100-mile road connecting the Dalton Hwy to Umiat, a
petroleum play that Link is looking to explore this winter.
2. A 200-mile road to the Ambler mining district also to be
paved by their end user beneficiaries using the concept of: "We
light the fuse, they make it go." He explained that the Alaska
Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) who would
raise the money to build the road so that the payoff could occur
when the mines or the petroleum are in a revenue status.
3. A shorter Tanana road that would bring surface access to the
river's width; the Tanana residents are already benefiting from
the clearing of the road that was done last summer.
4. Replacing a bridge on the Klondike to make it serviceable for
the large overweight rigs.
2:53:38 PM
MR. WALSH said the legislature added a lot to the 2013 capital
budget, but the 2014 capital budget request was much more
modest. It was just more money to get the Ambler access project
into the full-on environmental review process and to help
upgrade the Dalton Highway for the rigors it will be enduring in
the next few years, specifically using a Dalton Highway traffic
forecast that added up the projected traffic for all of the
different companies who are planning to do things on the North
Slope.
He said the Umiat area is petroleum rich and is thought to have
millions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of gas.
The road they would build there would be a basic 18 ft. wide
gravel road that would cost $200 to $300 million. That is money
that the state cannot get from the federal government and would
have a hard time putting up itself. But that money can be raised
by selling bonds through AIDEA and having those bonds be paid
off by the benefiting companies. The Corps of Engineers will be
leading the way; they control the schedule for how fast things
happen under the National Environmental Policy Act Program. You
have to have a Record of Decision (ROD) in hand before actually
starting to build a project and they hope to start that one in
2015.
2:55:35 PM
He said the Ambler mining district is mineral rich, copper being
one of the most important finds up there. There are 300 direct
jobs for just one of the mines that could be developed at
Novacopper, a spinoff of NovaGold. He said this is an important
partnership in Alaska's development, because if the state
doesn't build the road the mine won't happen. While they are
looking at alternative routes, the one they use will probably be
the shortest one from the Dalton through the Gates of the Arctic
National Park.
2:56:57 PM
MR. WALSH said the road to Tanana is much shorter, 26 miles, and
serious construction will be started in 2013. It is another very
basic road that will enable passage by most vehicles. There is
lots of mining potential in the area plus lots of benefits to
the people of Tanana, and they are quite enthusiastic about it.
The Yukon Territory has a lot of mining activity brewing, he
reported, and if those are going to be developed they need a
road to get the product out. And barring some kind of change in
railroad policy expanding into the Yukon, it will be on our
roads. The Klondike and probably the Haines Highway would be
called in to serve in this way. This could mean some policy
development as far as special revenues and how to come to grips
with these giant 12-axle, 200,000-pound road trains. There are
about 60 mines brewing in the Yukon; 3 are in production right
now delivering overweight rigs to ship-loading facilities in
Skagway; dozens more are in the development stage and every one
of them represents significant amounts of exploration and
development money. The mining business is big in the Yukon and
it is getting big in British Columbia and in Alaska. So we have
a lot of interaction.
Other projects are:
-West Susitna Access Reconnaissance Report that documents the
various mining, timber and resource opportunities there. He said
if there is a reason to build a bridge across the Susitna River,
they would look for a place to do that.
-Niblack Mine Access-Prince of Wales could benefit from improved
marine access
-Bokan Mountain Mine Access-Prince of Wales could also benefit
from improved marine access
-Totchaket Road-Nenana-a 400 ft. bridge
-Granduc Mine-Hyder Salmon Rd. (Cu) road upgrade, possible IUH
-Petersburg-Kake road-$40,000,000 in FY2013 budget, NEPA
underway
-LiDAR mapping project-$5 million in FY2013
-Katlian Valley Access (quarry)- Sitka $14 million 2012 bond
3:01:35 PM
REPRESENTATIVE FIEGE asked if the Umiat road is going to be a
public private partnership, wouldn't cost be a factor.
MR. WALSH answered yes; certainly the beneficiary has to agree
with the final selection.
CHAIR EGAN thanked Mr. Walsh for his presentation and said he
would be invited back again.
3:03:41 PM
Finding no further business to come before the committee Chair
Egan adjourned the Joint Senate and House Transportation
Committee meeting at 3:03 p.m.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|---|---|
| MAP-21 for Joint Transportation.pdf |
HTRA 1/22/2013 1:00:00 PM |
|
| DOT Hiway Present Jan 22 2013.pdf |
HTRA 1/22/2013 1:00:00 PM |
|
| Roads to Resources 1-22-2013 Joint Trans Committee.pdf |
HTRA 1/22/2013 1:00:00 PM |
|
| FEDERAL-AID GLOSSARY 1-22-13.pdf |
HTRA 1/22/2013 1:00:00 PM |