Federal aid set to boost local infrastructure funds

It’s hard to drive anywhere in Tompkins County without seeing construction, especially with some projects closing down parts of frequently traveled roads like Route 13 and Route 34B. This season, many project managers are playing catch-up after the pandemic caused several projects to be put on hold in 2020.

Even though managers are seeing far fewer challenges this year compared to last, the lingering effects of the pandemic, as well as a very rainy summer, have made completing some projects on time and on budget difficult. But project managers are hopeful that incoming federal aid could help address these and other concerns.

Navigating the pandemic

In the spring of 2020, most infrastructure projects were immediately put on hold, and many offices overseeing projects throughout the county had to scramble to adapt. Mike Moseley, deputy highway superintendent for the town of Lansing, detailed what his experience was like.

“Our town, our municipality, similar to many other ones in Tompkins County, sent people home, basically, following the executive orders and what was being put out by Gov. Cuomo with concern for people’s well-being due to COVID,” he said. “We hit the ground running with department head meetings, and then we were writing policy. We were following the CDC guidelines along with the Tompkins County Health Department guidelines, … honestly, just trying to keep everybody safe.”

Jeffrey Smith, Tompkins County highway director, faced a similar situation at his department. After a quick pause, the department was later able to bring back about half of its full-time staff, focusing efforts on emergency maintenance of county roadways, like fixing knocked-down signs and filling potholes. Smith said that through it all, his staff took the challenge in stride.

“It’s just been a great, great effort, and I can’t say enough about our employees and how they’ve really reacted to all this, really reacting to a large amount of change,” he said. “And sometimes it was daily. Every other day, we were tweaking different directives. And to say in front of it and have the success that we’ve had is really a credit to our employees.”

Thankfully, many departments have seen a welcome return to normalcy this year.

“The unknown last year was huge,” Moseley said. “It scared a lot of people. And this year, I think there’s a little more confidence. People getting vaccinated definitely helps people feel more confident about not getting COVID or being OK if they happen to get it.”

Smith added that while the state held back some infrastructure funding last year, that funding has since rolled over into this year.

“They held back a little bit of our state funding from 2020 but then [were] great and [were] able to get us back this year in ’21, as well [as] increase their funding,” he said. “So, in order to try and react to that extra funding, plus the normal funding we have, we’re trying to really focus on showing that need to Albany and realizing that we want to spend as much money as we can responsibly and improve our roads across the county.”

Overall, as Fernando de Aragón, executive director of the Ithaca-Tompkins County Transportation Council, explained, the pandemic had a minimal effect on the majority of county projects.

“There has not been a lot of impact from COVID yet,” de Aragón said. “A lot of these projects were already in the books, and they were already being advanced. And the pandemic didn’t affect those projects. Those monies were already scheduled, and a lot of these projects were … ongoing.”

Challenges

While infrastructure projects haven’t faced as many challenges as their development project counterparts (see t.ly/fKoQ), there are still some hurdles facing several projects.

Late last year, the Route 34B bridge over Salmon Creek in the town of Lansing closed for demolition and rebuilding. The project, managed by the New York State Department of Transportation (DOT), was initially scheduled for 2019 before getting delayed to 2020. As Curtis Jetter, public information officer for DOT Region 3, explained, completion of the bridge is now scheduled for the summer of next year.

“Delays in the fabrication and delivery of steel to the construction site were the major factor why completion of the State Route 34B bridge over Salmon Creek is now scheduled for early summer of 2022,” he said in an email.

Other sources also shared some challenges related to supplies, whether with pricing or availability. Tim Logue, director of engineering for the city of Ithaca, said he’s experienced some increase in materials cost and delays on products.

“Price of lumber went up, but not beyond what we could handle,” he said. “There haven’t been any major delays on things. And a lot of our paving projects, there’s been a fair amount of demand for concrete, so it’s just been a longer lead time waiting for concrete.”

In contrast to the contractor staffing challenges many developers are facing, Logue said he’s had plenty of bidders on the projects he oversees, including paving on Route 13.

“We regularly put projects up to bid and get a number of bidders on the projects,” he said. “That paving project on Route 13, we had six bidders on that job. So, it wasn’t like we had a lack of interested companies. I don’t always hear all the stories behind the scenes for the companies, but I do understand many of them do struggle to find laborers. … On the other hand, our projects are getting done, and we’re still getting bids.”

Another challenge this year was not caused by the pandemic at all — the weather.

“This year’s challenge was Mother Nature with the rain,” Moseley said. “We jumped right in our projects, moving right along, and the only thing holding us back is Mother Nature, as I think [is the case with] everybody. [We had an] extremely wet July, and then we’ve had some major flooding here of late, so you kind of roll with the punches.”

Looking ahead

While the status of the pandemic remains uncertain, project managers are hopeful that President Joe Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure improvement plan, passed last month, will bring an influx of funds to the county’s infrastructure projects.

“President Biden’s infrastructure proposal is a welcome and ambitious infrastructure framework to prepare the United States to regain its global competitiveness; protect existing and create new opportunities for American workers; enhance transportation-related resilience; and increase mobility for users of all abilities,” Jetter said in an email.

Logue said Biden’s plan could make a big difference for the projects he oversees.

“We do have a number of shovel-ready projects that need construction funding, so if Washington does finish that and pushes funds out throughout the country for bridges and roads, we certainly will have some that’ll be ready to step into that funding arena,” he said.

De Aragón explained that next year, the Transportation Council will be working on creating the next Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) — which details a wide array of projects throughout the county including sponsors and allocated funding — as the current TIP covers 2020 through 2024 (view a PDF version at t.ly/iigK). Federal funding, he said, could greatly impact the next TIP.

“Depending on what comes out of that whole process, we may get more money, or less money,” he said. “It seems like it’s going to be more money because they’re trying to get the economy going. It’s not uncommon that, at the federal level, they use transportation as an engine to activate the economy and get people back to work.”

Smith added that state administration recently announced another round of its Bridge NY program, which focuses on funding for bridge and culvert projects, so that’s another source of added funding for many of the ongoing projects in the county.

In addition to funding, sources are hopeful that the weather will fare well for construction for the rest of this season and into next.

“At the highway department, [like] anybody working outside, you want good weather,” Smith said. “When you get a tail of a hurricane coming through, you get heavy rains and we have washouts. And luckily, we haven’t had any major damage like some of our neighboring counties. But when you have a summer work program, and you end up having something like a large storm come through, instead of the next two weeks of actually getting additional work done towards your plan, you might be spending two weeks kind of backtracking, filling washouts where you’re not getting that moving forward work done. … It’s something that we got to be cautious of.”

To learn more about these and other projects, visit the Tompkins County Highway Department at www2.tompkinscountyny.gov/highway, Lansing Highway Department at lansingtown.com/departments/highway-department, the Transportation Council at www2.tompkinscountyny.gov/itctc and DOT Region 3 at dot.ny.gov/regional-offices/region3/general-info.