Fed transportation grants aim to accelerate eastern Nebraska roads projects

A total of $5.15 million in federal transportation grants the Nebraska Department of Transportation recently received are aimed at helping the state evaluate new ways to finance and complete roads projects in seven eastern Nebraska counties — including Omaha and Lincoln — in shorter timeframes, transportation officials announced Friday in Omaha.

"This initiative will use every tool in the federal toolbox to fix congestion," said Federal Highway Administrator Sean McMaster, who noted that congestion nationally acts as a nearly $270 billion tax annually on American families, businesses and the economy in lost productivity and wasted fuel.

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, who attended the announcement, said transportation investments in Nebraska mean a more resilient supply chain, enhanced food security and improved mobility for residents.

"If we don't have infrastructure, we can't grow," he said.

McMaster said the grants — there are three of them — from the Build America Bureau and the Federal Highway Administration will help leverage what potentially could be billions in future investments in transportation and economic development in the region. 

The awards, known as technical assistance grants, are intended to help the Transportation Department find ways to finance and develop projects faster than in the past.

Vicki Kramer, the state agency's director, said NDOT in the past has financed projects on a pay-as-you-go basis. In recent years, it has used alternate financing methods, which, with faster environmental permitting and other changes, will allow the agency to complete the U.S. Highway 275 corridor project eight years earlier than projected.

A $1.15 million Regional Infrastructure Accelerator Grant would be directed to the Accelerating Critical Connections for Elevating Livability in Nebraska, or ACCEL-NE program, which is comprised of more than $6 billion in priority transportation projects in a region that includes Omaha, Lincoln and surrounding suburban and rural areas.

The funding would be used to assess the feasibility of such projects and develop the institutional capacity to complete them. 

The state also received two $1 million Innovative Finance and Asset Concession Program grants. One would support an "asset scan" of nine selected projects in the Omaha metro area and the I-80 corridor between downtown Omaha and Lincoln. That would be used to evaluate existing transportation assets and envision future possibilities, such as partnering with the private sector or developers to expand capacity if a need is foreseen.

The second would evaluate the financial feasibility of redeveloping "The Stitch," a 20-acre parcel of state-owned land in Omaha near the I-480 and Dodge Street interchange. The meeting room at Physicians Mutual, 22nd and Dodge Streets, where the grants were announced Friday provided a sweeping view of the site.

Omaha Mayor John Ewing said the site offers land for economic development in the city's urban core in close proximity to the future Omaha Streetcar. 

"This money will give us an opportunity to really examine the possibilities and then look at what is truly possible when we look at that area for economic development," he said.