State Transportation Board member Rudy Bowen of Duluth announced this week the recipients of Transportation Enhancement (TE) program funds for Fiscal Year 2008 & Fiscal Year 2009 for the 7th Congressional District.

The TE program is federally-funded and was originally established in 1991 by the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA). The program was continued by the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act – A Legacy For Users (SAFETEA-LU) in 2005. The Georgia DOT’s Planning Office manages the TE program in Georgia.

“I’m delighted to announce these grants,” Bowen said. “We received a great many excellent applications from communities and organizations in the 7th District. Unfortunately, we could not fund them all in this grant phase. The selected projects show great local government commitment to improving their community’s quality of life and their local elected leaders and state legislators are to be commended.”

The TE program’s goal is to enrich the transportation experience of Georgians through specific types of enhancement projects. The kinds of projects funded by the TE program include multi-use facilities such as walking and biking trails and paths; streetscaping and landscaping projects in cities and towns; historic preservation of transportation-related facilities like railroad depots; and scenic preservation of views and scenic byways.

This year, the Georgia DOT received a total of 285 eligible applications representing combined requests for more than $176 million in federal funds from all 13 congressional districts. In this selection round, $54.6 million in federal funds are available for Fiscal Years 2008 and 2009 for distribution statewide.

Up to 80 percent of the funds being used for these projects have been provided by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), with the local government funding the remainder of the total project cost. The local government project sponsor is responsible for implementing the TE project and obtaining federal reimbursement from Georgia DOT.

To aid in the project selection, the Georgia DOT relies on an extensive in-house technical review and the Transportation Enhancement Advisory Panel, which was formed in 1992. The advisory panel group of professionals, representing statewide expertise in the various TE project categories, evaluated each application and forwarded its recommendations to the State Transportation Board for final selection of the funded projects.

The selected projects in the 7th Congressional District are:

· $500,000 to the Winder Downtown Streetscape in Barrow County – streetscape improvements to Broad Street (State Route 53), beginning at Porter Street and ending at Stephens Street;

· $368,000 to the State Route 20/SR 84/Rosebud/Pine Grove Improvements in Gwinnett County, with landscape, hardscape and lights in select locations;

· $500,000 to Gwinnett County for Phase V of the Historic Downtown Streetscape project, which will include the extension of existing decorative brick sidewalks, decorative lighting, landscaping, handicap accessibility, new curb and gutter and drainage improvements;

· $400,000 to the City of Lawrenceville in Gwinnett County for the second phase of Lawrenceville Trail, providing for pedestrian and bicycling traffic linking parks to residential and scenic areas and a trailhead to an existing TE project;

· $300,000 to the Buford Highway Median Landscaping project in Gwinnett County, for an addition of landscape and hardscape items to the median of Buford Highway from N. Berkeley Lake Rd. to Hwy 120;

· $350,000 to Gwinnett County for Phase 3 of the Pleasant Hill Road Pedestrian Mobility project, to provide safety, traffic calming and streetscape enhancements along the Northeast side of Pleasant Hill Rd from Breckinridge Blvd. (where it will tie into the current TE funded project) to Club Drive;

· $350,000 to the Satellite Boulevard Pedestrian & Transit Connector, Phase 2, in Gwinnett County, to provide sidewalks and streetscape enhancements along Satellite Blvd. from the Gwinnett County Transit Center to Tandy Key Lane;

· $500,000 to Gwinnett County for the Southeastern Railroad Depot Rehabilitation to be used for construction of a shelter for restored railcars and to house railroad artifacts from the early 1900's. The Historic Duluth Depot will be used as a museum;

· $500,000 to the Club Drive Sidewalk/Multi-Use Trail project in Gwinnett County which will provide a key link to a sidewalk network, connecting a new County park to existing medium-to-high density residential development; and

· $500,000 to the City of Monroe in Walton County for the Broad Street (SR 11) Streetscape, which will include sidewalks, decorative brick pavers, street lighting, signage and furniture, landscaping, drainage improvements and safety/ADA improvements.

More information on the TE program and applications are available on the DOT web site at  http://www.dot.state.ga.us/dot/plan-prog/planning/projects/te/index.shtml.