The games we play for federal funds

First of all, kudos to the Peoria Times-Observer for putting their articles online. Welcome to the Internet.

Secondly, take a look at this article about the Northmoor Road improvement project. Apparently, they have to plan for five lanes in order to get federal funding, even though they have no intention of building five lanes:

The federal government is willing to pay for a project that only involves three lanes as long as planning is done for five lanes. [Sen. Dale] Risinger said the city has no choice but to go along with the federal government’s wishes.

“This project is well beyond the scope of the city’s ability to pay,” he said. “We need the federal funds … Don’t worry about five lanes being built. That’s the city’s decision. You are the city.”

The article doesn’t say, but I’m going to conjecture that the advantage of planning for five lanes is that it will be less expensive to upgrade if needed in the future. Which means that the federal government evidently sees five lanes as inevitable in the long run. Hopefully the City doesn’t see the three-lane solution as temporary.

But there’s one other thing that I find surprising. Risinger says this road project “is well beyond the scope of the city’s ability to pay.” How can this be? I thought with all the tax base we’re capturing to the north through annexation and the increases in population that come with it, we should be awash in money for infrastructure improvements. How can this infrastructure improvement in North Peoria be beyond our ability to pay?

5 thoughts on “The games we play for federal funds”

  1. If the project is beyond the scope of the city to pay for then and the residents don’t want the road widened, then why is this being pursued. There are a lot of projects that need to be done, the residents want done, that are within the scope of the city to pay and yet they are not done. Please explain.

  2. Good question, Paul. I don’t know the answer, but I’ll be happy to hypothesize. My guess is that this is an infrastructure upgrade that public works would like to see done, and there is money available to do it, not only through the federal government, but also through partnering with the county and the Tri-county Regional Planning Commission. Check out these references:

    http://www.tricountyrpc.org/goto/STU2
    http://www.tricountyrpc.org/resource/214

    And here is some explanation of the City’s thinking from a 2005 Request for Council Action:

    With the completion of the West Forrest Hill Avenue improvements, the City and the County reviewed the existing system to determine the next candidate for improvements under the joint City/County agreement to upgrade County highways within the City.

    With the opening of the Charter Oak Road extension in July 2005, a new arterial route across the northern part of the city has been created. It is now possible to travel across this part of the city from Koerner Road on the west to Knoxville Avenue on the east, a distance of five miles. Consequently, it is anticipated that the portion of Northmoor Road to be included in this study will experience an increase in traffic, due to the improved road network….

    It is necessary to begin this work in order to obtain Federal funding when it is available. The first opportunity for funding from PPUATS [Peoria/Pekin Urbanized Area Transportation Study] is 2010.

    Hope that helps.

  3. If the City can’t pay for it, I doubt it’s a good investment for the federal govt. Besides, it’s totally unneeded. Everybody is going to ride their bicycle to work in Peoria as soon as we convert some of our highways into trails. Hmmm. Maybe maybe the feds would pay to convert Northmoor Road into a trail. Sounds like a win-win. Come on, Rabid Trail Advocates, let’s have a press conference and a walk on Northmoor. Think of how wonderful it will be when we get rid of those dirty, gas-guzzling SUV’s speeding down that road….

  4. I’ll conjecture a bit also- I think the widening has to do with the congestion on Northmoor from Allen to Univ on school days- access to both Northmoor & Rolling Acres schools close to Allen & of course Richwoods at University. 3 lanes is plenty to alleviate this particular congestion. Many times there is a line of cars wanting to turn into Richwoods from the west that blcoks the other westbound traffic from getting to the light. The same can be said coming up the hill from Allen as you approach Northmoor. The good thing is many of the people that drive this stretch frequently are very courteous and let people out of the parking lot at Northmoor Edison.

  5. Based on past experiences taxpayer’s might want to be leary of the we will apply for this project and we will definitely change it to the project we are currently selling you……

    I cannot remember if this project was ever advanced as a two lane project with the installation of sidewalks and fixing the drainage? Anyone know the answer to that?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.