Mounds View CR 10 Trail funding application

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I have reviewed the Met Council Regional solicitation scoring for the 2009-2010 Federal Funding applications and have developed the following summary for the Mounds View County Road 10 Trail project. Federal funding requested in each category this year was: STP, $207 million CMAQ, $68 million Enhancements, $38 million In 2003 the totals were: STP, $216 million CMAQ, $64 million Enhancements, $26 million You can see that the requested funding in the first two programs stayed relatively level. The Enhancements Category had a very substantial increase in requests this year. For the Enhancements Category, 55 projects were submitted. The score for each project ranged from 993 to 273. The Mounds View CR 10 Trail project received a score or 856 and ranked 13th overall. Generally you can assume that in order for the CR 10 project to receive funding, the TAB and Mn/DOT would need to fund at least the top 13 projects in this category. This would require that approximately $11.9 million be provided to the Enhancements Category. In 2003 the TAB provided approximately $11 million to Enhancement projects. I spoke with Kevin Roggenbuck from the Met Council about the funding levels for the various programs. Kevin stated that the current level of funding for each program is as follows: STP, $55 million CMAQ, $35 million Enhancements, $10 million Total = $100 million Kevin stated that the total ($100 million) still needs to be confirmed and will be determined by Mn/DOT and their interpretation of SAFETEA-LU. Whatever the final total is, 10% will be used for enhancements. Although the demand was greater this year, it is highly unlikely that more than 10% would go to Enhancements because this takes funding away from STP roadway projects. Therefore it is likely to expect that $10 million will go to the Enhancements Category. Based on the initial scoring and ranking, the total federal allocation would need to be around $119 million, which is highly unlikely, for the CR 10 Trail project to be funded. Although the project scored well and ranked 13th out of 55, it appears to be right at the cutoff line. The project is very close in score to the other projects ahead of it. The way I have analyzed it is that in order to receive funding, one of the following needs to happen: 1. TAB (or Mn/DOT) funds $11.9 million in Enhancements 2. Two of the projects ahead of the CR 10 project decide to drop out of the program. 3. An appeal is made and the CR 10 project receives an additional 14 points which moves it to 11th place. 4. TAB decides to reduce the federal contribution to all Enhancement projects to allow more projects to receive some funding. 5. TAB decides that so many projects received a high score that each agency gets only one project funded. In the top 13 projects, Minneapolis has 4, Dakota County has 2, St. Paul has 2 and Bloomington has 2. The way it has been scored it looks like Minneapolis would receive $3.8 million, Dakota County would receive $1.6 million, St. Paul would receive $2 million and Bloomington would receive $2 million. That is $9.4 million going to four agencies. The only other agencies in the top 13 projects are Hennepin County, Anoka County and Mounds View. Based on the top 11 projects, $5.8 million would be going to projects located in Hennepin County leaving about $4.2 million to go to projects in the other 6 counties. I would anticipate that of the 5 scenarios above, number 5 is the most likely way for the CR 10 project to get funded. The others are long shots at this point. It is hard to say what will happen but the next step for the CR 10 Trail project is to see if there are any individual section scores that can be appealed to raise the overall score. The project scored very well (even if it might not make the cutoff) so I am not sure that any additional points are possible. We will keep you posted as to our progress. Kevin Hoglund Transportation Group Bonestroo & Associates 651-604-4837