New Jersey DOT Awards More Than $30 Million to Improve Freight Routes
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The New Jersey Department of Transportation announced $30.1 million in grant funding dedicated to improving local roads that serve as freight conduits.
The grants, announced earlier this month, are part of the Local Freight Impact Fund program and are meant to help counties and municipalities facilitate heavy truck traffic.
Some 25 grants representing 24 municipalities were awarded.
NJDOT News -- Murphy Administration announces $30.1 million in FY19 Local Freight Impact Fund grants. Read more: https://t.co/vrHValCdRh — NJDOT (@NJDOT_info) July 16, 2019
NJDOT received 59 applications requesting more than $85 million for the program.
“New Jersey roads and bridges carry some of the heaviest amount of commercial truck traffic in the country every day,” NJDOT Commissioner Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti said July 16. “The Local Freight Impact Fund is an example of your gas tax dollars at work.”
There are four project categories: pavement preservation, truck safety and mobility, bridge preservation and new construction.
Of the 25 awarded grants, there were 19 pavement preservation projects, three truck safety and mobility projects, two new construction projects and one bridge preservation project.
Program applicants must demonstrate how the project will provide access to a port, warehouse distribution center or any other freight hub through a narrative and a map. The projects under consideration also must have a minimum of 10% large-truck volume moving through the area in question.
The project list includes a $1.2 million grant for pavement preservation work on a truck route at the Port of Camden, which is located in southern New Jersey across the Delaware River from downtown Philadelphia.
Gail Toth, executive director of the New Jersey Motor Truck Association, said the high volume of pavement preservation projects speaks to the state’s aging infrastructure. New Jersey received a D+ on the American Society of Civil Engineers’ most recent infrastructure report card in 2016.
Toth
“We have a lot of potholes, a lot of older roads,” Toth said. “We have a very old infrastructure.”
One of the new construction projects involves a $1.7 million grant for the Probasco Road Freight Bypass in East Windsor, which is 13 miles east of Trenton. The other new construction project devotes $4 million for a truck bypass road that will divert traffic from State Route 44 in Gloucester County and improve access to an industrial plant under redevelopment. Gloucester County is immediately south of Camden County.
Toth said that many of the projects are located near industrial areas or ports, which are important to the state’s freight industry.
“We are pretty much a port state. Port access is very important to all of us,” Toth said. “Most of our guys at some point have to service the port because everything comes from overseas.”
The Local Freight Impact Fund program, distributed by NJDOT’s Local Aid and Economic Development division, was created in 2016 as part of the Transportation Trust Fund reauthorization. Agency officials assess potential projects on the basis of existing conditions, traffic volume, crash frequency and connectivity to freight nodes.
“It’s worth noting that finally we can see specific projects that will help the trucking industry. At least we’re seeing our tax dollars at work,” Toth said.
