Bureaucratic gridlock could delay road stimulus money

BY BILL DOLAN, Times of Northwest Indiana 
bdolan@nwitimes.com

CROWN POINT | Lake County's highway boss is warning motorists not to let their expectations of road repair get overstimulated by the $787 billion economic recovery plan.

County officials have said they submitted a stimulus wish list that would repave 156 miles, more than one quarter of the county highway network.

But Marcus Malczewski, Lake County Highway Department superintendent, said very little of that asphalt will be laid down unless the state and federal government relax the strict rules usually imposed on construction projects for environmental and engineering studies. And Malczewski said few local governments can afford to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars drawing up engineering plans on the chance of a federal windfall.

"The intent of the stimulus money was for shovel-ready projects with engineering and right-of-way already taken care of," said Angie Fegaras, a spokeswoman for the Indiana Department of Transportation.

Malczewski said a project typically involving federal dollars takes three years to break ground.

"If they are looking at environmental reports for each road project, that takes time," Malczewski said. "Their insistence on a shovel-ready project is a joke."

He hopes to receive some stimulus money to push the start of the reconstruction of 45th Avenue in rural Calumet Township to this spring. However, the county still has to acquire 200 land parcels to finish the second and third phases of 45th, making it far from shovel-ready.

Steve Strains, planning director for the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission Transportation Policy Committee, said its unlikely the state and federal government will drop all prerequisites, but they may relax speed deadlines to get work moving.

President Barack Obama is expected to sign a final version of the stimulus package that will provide $4 billion to Indiana for income tax breaks, education and school improvements and health care.

Gov. Mitch Daniels said about $160 million is set aside statewide for highway work. Lake, Porter, LaPorte, Newton and Jasper counties can expect about $20 million if the money is apportioned by population as is usual.

Lake County's road and flood control request alone are in the hundreds of millions of dollars.