For its $600,000 expenditure toward a Transportation Improvement Project grant for the 2017-2020 cycle, Catoosa County will get $2.4 million from the federal government.
At the Catoosa County Board of Commissioners’ most recent meeting, officials unanimously committed to the county’s share of the overall $3 million grant.
Donald Brown, Public Works director for the county, said there will not be any tax increases to pay for the county’s share of the TIP grant.
“We’ve planned for this,” Brown said, adding, “We don’t want to lose that money. We’ve already allocated SPLOST dollars for it. We knew this was on the horizon.”
The TIP grant will be put toward repairing and rehabilitating roads in urbanized areas of Catoosa, namely roads which connect jurisdictions and have high average traffic, he said. The county inspects roads on a three-year cycle through a pavement management program to identify which are in the most dire need of rehabilitation, said Brown.
“We try to focus the funding on roads with lower remaining service life,” he said, “though we try to mitigate or fix roads before they get in very poor structural condition.”
Once a road reaches a point where its base needs repair or replacement, he said, the cost can be significantly higher.
“What may cost $1 now can cost $4 later,” said Brown.
The TIP grant for 2012-2016 – the grant runs in cycles and is renewed every four years – repaved and repaired many roads in the county, including much of Three Notch Road, Burning Bush Road and the entirety of West Nickajack Road.
It is important to note, though, that inclusion does not guarantee a project will happen during that time frame. According to the website for the Chattanooga-Hamilton County/North Georgia Transportation Planning Organization, which administers the grant, “The TIP is based on funds, which are reasonably expected to be available for project implementation.”
Projects are prioritized, with funding going to the highest priorities first.
Catoosa County’s 2012-2016 TIP grant was for roughly $1.2 million. Brown said the reason for the large increase for the 2017-2020 grant is due to greater need within the county.
“When the TIP comes around for 2021-2024, we may not request as much as we did this year,” he added. “It’s all dependent on our need.”
Brown said the county has learned from the TIP grant process of previous years, and is looking forward to the benefit the 2017-2020 grant will bring to Catoosa.
The TIP grant is a partnership between the Federal Highway Administration, Georgia Department of Transportation and the local government. Much of Catoosa’s urbanized area is part of the Greater Chattanooga metropolitan area, which means cooperation between states is necessary.