Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: It's not We are live.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Good afternoon. We're here on Tuesday, 01/27/2026. It's like the legislative Monday. Right? It's Tuesday, but it's like a legislative Monday, the first day of the week. And we are starting back with our review of the governor's recommended transportation budget, moving into another section, particularly, obviously this, paving roadway and traffic safety and programs budget. We have three guests here today, three witnesses. And looks like they drew straws and Matt's going first. So I don't if you wanna start and introduce or how you wanna do. And I'm you have your lined up for presentation. I suspect we will want to interrupt you as you go through and ask questions at the moment for the particular topics. And welcome back to committee. And I will happily hand it over to you.

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: All right, thank you. Yeah, so for the record, my name is Matt Rogaczyk, and I am the program manager for the Highway Safety and Design section within the Project Delivery Bureau. And I'm here to talk to you about the three programs that fall underneath me. So those are shown on the screen now, just confirming I won't go back there anymore. So first we'll talk through the paving program, which just as a very quick recap, we'll take on any type of projects from preventative maintenance like crack sealing or very thin overlays. If you think of paving projects, you're probably thinking of that middle of the road two inches mill and fill type treatment and anything up into the rehabilitation level where we'll do some reclaims, some slab removals, fold in place recycling. Then we'll move on to the roadway program, where we do some of the large full depth reconstruction type projects. We also tackle slope and ledge stabilization jobs. We do some culvert replacements, some stormwater flow restorations. We deal with emergent needs type projects, and we help an awful lot with the emergency response. Finally, we'll cap it off with the traffic and safety program, which is where mainly all things intersection come from. So, we do intersection reconstructions. We also do signal replacements or first installations. This section also takes care of corridor sign replacements. We do the annual pavement marking projects, and then we'll tackle some of the high risk roll load projects. With that, we will move right into the paving program. The paving program is going be tab 5A in your white book. This year, we have an appropriation in the paving program of $148,200,000 which is an increase of about $45,000,000 over last year's budget. The funding is allocated for three different of a project. It starts with preliminary engineering or the design phase. In the paving program, we do have a couple of projects that have right of way, but not very many. And then obviously, the big hitter in the paving program would be the construction activities. So a lot of the funding goes towards the construction. What this breaks down to is this shows construction funding on 36 different projects in state fiscal year '27, and also funds those first two phases on an additional 27 projects. So the Fragilmentary Engineering and though very minor right away acquisitions as necessary. This year, we also just wanted to point out that we had 11 projects that were planned for advertisement and what we like to refer to as the prime advertisement season. So between September '5 and February 2026, 11 of the projects went out. Down on the bottom of this slide, you'll see a tabulated view of how the funding is dispersed based on the scopes of work or the classification of the roadway. So with Class I projects, we have about 8,500,000 allocated in 'twenty seven. State system, non national highway system, we have about $40,000,000 On the national highway system, not including the interstate, it's about 5,300,000.0 And then for interstate funding this year, we are showing almost $70,000,000 And then the last line on here, I'll just touch on it really quickly, the miles paved. So for calendar year 2026, this is how we have broken this down historically. We're planning on 152 miles of paving this year, this calendar year. That does bridge between 'twenty six and 'twenty seven fiscal years, but we've cut these based on calendar year. In comparison to last year, 2025, we had planned 102 miles.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Sorry. Can you back up for a second on that? Sure. So if I took the 152, it was percentage of those dollars in that four sections. Would that be about the amount of miles? Would I say that 70,000,000 is out of the total? Basically, it's a broke out of a million. That's almost 50%. So are we saying that probably 75 miles would be

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: on the interstate and x amount

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: of money would be on the interstate. If I were to add maybe a bit more clear and make it simpler, if I was going

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: to take the 152

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: miles and break them out, could you give me a ballpark of what they might be in the four sections?

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: Sure. I can tell you a little bit closer. Is that another slide? No, don't have another slide, but I can tell you. So on the interstate, out of the 152 miles, the interstate, we're planning on 92 miles of paving. On the NHS, we have about four miles. On the state non NHS, we have 52 miles, and for Class I this year, we're showing 4.3 miles. I can say that slower or repeat it if I want to.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Representative White, is that a

[Candice White (Member)]: Yes, please.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Is that a yes?

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: Interstate was 92 miles. The NHS, we have about four miles. The non NHS state system is 52, and on class one, we are 4.3.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: How does that reflect from last year compared to last year, those numbers? That just seems like really tough having an interstate. Was that like that last year or two? Is that the norm or is this sort of like a, you can get back to us. I'm just wondering how that compares.

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: I would have to get back to you on actual breakdowns. I don't have those with me today. The interstate is kind of that prime paving world where you're not going around a lot of infrastructure, so we do tend to get a lot of miles on that. I can't say for certain that it's exactly reflective or in the same ballpark. It does kind of ebb and flow as the interstate comes into a better condition. Obviously, you don't need to dedicate as much money there, but I don't know what the numbers are off the top of

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: my head.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: It just seems really low for the state. What did you say, 4.1? Or was that the 50?

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: So if you take non interstate mileage, you're at almost 60 miles off from the interstate. So that would be inclusive of Class I town highways and NHS and non NHS.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Ms. Annouech?

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Yeah, I just want to be sure I'm understanding the federal matchworks with these categories of roads. With interstates, it's five-two-one, right?

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: So generally speaking, the interstate is typically a ninety-ten split, and off the interstate, it tends to be roughly an eightytwenty. It's 80 one-eight and eighteen-ninety two, with the federal chair being the lot of drain both of those.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Representative McCoy, I'm sorry. So the interstate, that's 89, 91, 93, does that include US 4?

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: That does not. That would be most, or a portion of US4 would be on the NHS classification. So interstate is really those that are labeled with the I-ninety 3, I-ninety 1. So

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: the portion of US tour, is that the one that's between the New York border and Rutland, the one

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: that's the four lanes? There is, yes, so there's a couple of sections that we would call, that would be Super 4, as Kate referred to it, it does have that same the New Or the New 4, sure. Yep, yep. So it's a limited access highway, and what you would typically think of as an interstate or atypical section, it is still not an interstate, it's not a labeled interstate, it's still that one would fall to be a national highway system, HS level. And the same thing goes through for there's a section of GS-seven that's in a similar fashion. Okay.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Thank you. Yep. In US-nine, too, is that?

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: US-nine, I believe, is NHS as well.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Representative Pouech?

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, just on the same topic. Just to clarify, the NHS are non interstate roads that the federal government says, hey, these are important routes, right?

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: Yes, yep. Yeah, so they're on the national highway system, but not included in the interstate. So it's basically that other designation, important but not interstate.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Representative

[Candice White (Member)]: White? On that same topic, Route 100 Scenic Byway, is that a non NHS state system?

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: I don't know, I don't know. I would have to look back to see. I don't have a list of them right between me. There is a list out there that would designate the Vermont National Highway System routes versus non National Highway System. There is a breakdown on how they select those, and I'm not familiar with how that is actually picked up. I know on the project level, if you're looking through the white book, the designation at the beginning of the project number, that will give you a clue as to what's on the NHS versus what's on the state system versus what's the interstate. So interstate, you'll see things like there's Montpelier Waterbury I'm numbers. The I'm means it's an interstate project. Other projects like the Route 9 project that was mentioned before, I believe that we had one that was Wilmington Brattleboro NH. NH is NHS. The rest of them fall under STP, which is state system. If you're looking project wise, you can see it that way. Then there is a map out there of the NHS.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Okay. And just one other question. I know

[Candice White (Member)]: that AOT keeps a list watching how many people are using this road, what the wear and tear is, and they've got a list for projects next on the list for improving or rebuilding. Do they overlay that list with anything like seeing it by way?

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: The way that the paving program has projects that are programmed is based on our pavement management system, which is housed within asset management. So I'm adjacently aware of it, is the way I can put it. That does take into account vehicle miles traveled to deterioration on the roadway. And then that will come up with a list of projects that can be used based on or yeah, that comes up with a list of projects based on all of those inputs and funding constraints. I am not aware of any other inputs or toggles or criteria yet. I don't know that they are there, but that's not to say that they are. From my side, on the project development side, I understand that that's what the system sees and looks at, and then it comes out to a project, and then we take the project and design it, put it out to construction.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Thank you. Yep. Perfect.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Thank you. Representative Pouech, I think, and then I got Representative Burke.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So there was online a map that showed the condition of all the highways, and I think they were color coded maybe. It would be interesting to see that and this on a map, like what's been done, just sort of, see that. It would be easier, I think, for me anyways. But I'd be interested in scoring the map based on the asset, right, you do the measurement. So you guys don't do that, you're told, go do this, and based on the criteria, this one's

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: up this year. Yes, yep, yep. So I think the map that you're talking about was on the V Transparency site, which does have color coded condition data. At one point, and I haven't looked at it in probably a month or so, at one point we did have projects highlighted on that map as well. I don't know how much detail they go into on that side of it. The other side is on the fee transparency project site. You can, of course, see the projects, but it doesn't necessarily mesh that data. But like I said, at one point or another, we did have the condition data there, and there was a highlight around a certain segment to say there's a project coming that's gonna address this portion of this road. Okay.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: And then I hate to have you repeat it again, but with these four categories, can you describe the basic funding, the match, typical match, like the highway, state highway was nine and ten. And then the national highway was

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: That one, I believe, is also an eightytwenty split, or the eight thousand one hundred eighteighteen ninety two for the national highway system. So we'll go from the top down. The Class I town highways are, generally speaking, a roughly eightytwenty splitter. That 80 one-eighteen-ninety

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: two.

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: I'm going say eightytwenty because that's basically what it is. So Class I system, eightytwenty. State system, non NHS, is eightytwenty. The NHS, I believe, is eightytwenty. And then the interstate would be ninetyten.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Representative Burke?

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Yeah, Representative White's question prompted me to ask about the byways program, is it still active? This might not be a question for you, so just

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: That is not something that I'm aware of, not something that I can testify on, I don't know.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: I'll try to find somebody else, I know that it was really active, I was you know that it was a natural gal that set up just in the highways and just wondered whether we're still and then, like like, for instance, they put some markers up, historic markers around the Mollie Schauff Trail. I wonder if it's still an active program.

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: Yeah, I'm not sure, I'm aware of the signs. I'll

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: ask Michelle. To chime in.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: All

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: right, so the next slide is really just another way to look at the funding numbers that were on the previous slide in that table view, which is the pie chart version of the same data, just showing percentage wise where we have funding shown. And with that, we'll jump right into the 10 gs reports for the paving program. So 10 gs-one are the new projects that were programmed after the 'twenty six budget. Most of these projects you'll see have the designation DLEV25, and then another number. That's reflective of the type of project. It's a district leveling project. So these are roads that are having trouble to continue maintenance on, be it winter maintenance, they're having a hard time plowing them, or the surface has just gotten very rough, so we need to go out and take care of some of these. So the vast majority of this list is the district leveling type project. There are two exceptions. I have looked at this a few times, so I'm not going to question. There are two exceptions to that list. There's the Rockingham NH project and the Morristown WIMx project. These two projects were added to the program after the budget last year to take care of a couple of WIM sites or weigh in motion sites. These are areas where we're getting traffic data based on vehicles passing over top of an in road sensor. So what we're doing at these locations is we're trying to smooth out the road so that the truck isn't bouncing across the sensor, depending on where they are in their balance. If they're too light, they're not reading that it's a truck. If they're too heavy, they might say it's six trucks. So obviously, having smooth roads for a sensor that's weighing weights in the roadway, you need to have a smooth roadway for that. So those are the two exceptions to that list. Up next is the first of the expanded projects in the 10G2s. This is anything that's increased by 75% or 5,000,000. Very happy to report that there's nothing on this list in the payment program this year. I did have celebratory fireworks on this sheet before, but I took them off. Up next is the second of the expanded reports. This is 10G3. This is an increase of $10,000,000 or 100% when compared to the preliminary planned phase estimate. The Killington Stockbridge project is the only one that has met this criteria. It did show up on the list last year. Is a factor of preliminary plan estimate that occurred in 2014. There was a little bit of scope expansion to include some drainage work in that project, so that increased the cost, plus inflation increased the cost to take it up to where we're at today. I do want to note that we are reviewing the treatment on this project, and we do expect that there could be a cost reduction with the review of the treatment. We just don't have a good number on what that is yet. So, the one and only that's on the list for today. And then finally, we have 10G4, which are the projects that are completing or ending, coming out of the books. We have two F PAVE projects, so Federal Paving on Chelsea, Washington, which is Vermont 110 Essex Fairfax, which is on Vermont 128 and then we have a Marshfield Danville project, which was on US 2. And this was a mix of treatments throughout the segments, just recognizing some projects had completed recently, some projects are up and coming, and some would need to stand the test of the twenty year timeframe, roughly. So mix of treatments on that one, but that one is completed. Just one quick showcase of a project. So this project is Mollieure to Waterbury IM-eighty 9. Many of you have probably driven on this. If you're coming from the North on 89 or if you've traveled up that way at all, you've driven this segment, at least coming back this direction. So this is I-eighty 9 southbound. We took some investigative cores at the beginning of this project just to get a good sense on what the deterioration looked like. What we found was that there was deterioration down below what a typical two inches mill and fill was going to cover. With this one, we elected to go down to a five inch depth and replace the pavement in that five inches with all brand new material, so it should hold up based on what we have for models. The total construction cost estimate is $15,200,000 The project did start last year. It will continue on in the 2026. There's another lift of pavement to go on out there. So we've basically done a leveling and an intermediate. We have a wearing surface that'll go out, and they took care of some guardrail repairs over the course of the fall time frame. So we should be ready to be up and paving in the spring. I realized after I did this that I did my pictures a little bit backwards. So we're paving this picture, but a couple of construction pictures. We go back in time here just showing the milling activity starting in the passing lane. This does incorporate the ramps within that section, and then just acknowledging that we are doing guardrail replacements on that project.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Chris, in case, when you mill out five inches, are putting the five

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: inches back? We are in this case, yes. Multiple layers, right? Yes. Yeah. I believe so we did it in three lifts. We milled down five inches. We get a half roughly a half inch of leveling, so it's basically just to true up the surface. And then we have two lifts of pavement on top of that to get that get the the strong layers above it. It'll So be three different passes in this case.

[Candice White (Member)]: Jean, what? Just lingering on slide six, happy to see that Facet And Wakefield, Vermont Route 17 is on that list for district leveling. What exactly does district leveling mean?

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: Typically, it's not very invasive. I'll leave it kind of loose like that. Tends to be a relatively thin paving over top of a road that's in relatively rough shape. So if you think about

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Putting lipstick on the pave type of

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: It's It's away. I'll take an example. So one that I'm aware of and can speak to is Cambridge. Cambridge 108, so this is leading up to the Notch. The road's in really rough shape. It's hard to maintain that. It's hard to keep it plowed. Obviously, on it is not great. What these projects tend to look to achieve is to true up that surface, make it passable and tolerable until there's a larger project that can come along and do a deeper fix if that's the right treatment. So maybe lipstick on a pig.

[Candice White (Member)]: So there'll be a new surface of paving and re striping. And with re striping, there is an opportunity to maybe stripe a bike lane? On

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: these,

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: it's not out of the picture, but what I'll say is these are not a two scale drawing for the plan to go out. So typically, you're running with a typical section, which just says paint your lanes at this width, and then the shoulder becomes whatever the shoulder is. They tend to be extremely light on the design side, if designed at all. It tends to be more pave at this depth from here to here, and then re stripe it with 11 foot lanes to 12 foot lanes, or whatever it may be. So the opportunity is technically there. It's not easily incorporated in the model that we have with the district leveling right now.

[Candice White (Member)]: But if the select boards wanted to approach AOT about changing the strike thing at all?

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: That could be an opportunity, yep. And that would

[Candice White (Member)]: be reaching out through the district's manager?

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: Yes, think that would probably be the most appropriate in those cases, yes.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Just gotta ask the question of how you get on that list.

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: And how you get on the

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Besides the district runaway projects, this is the worst case of everything. We've to get out there and put something on there until we can do a better repair on a longer term basis or get us to the next project. Is there a process that Absolutely. Really an observation and issues? I'm just curious how do get on a district level? Because there's plenty of red spots, and I assume that's the flashy red lights that people are saying these are the worst sections.

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: Yeah, so again, awareness from my lens. These lists are derived through both coordination with the district through asset management. It's either coordination from the district with asset management or the payment management system is determining that, hey, this would benefit this segment. But that's coming from a different group than me.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I used to hear that if you had a relatively light winter, that your amount of ability to do district lending would go up. I'm assuming that's not the case this year, or that was just an old urban legend.

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: Not something that I know of for this year. These projects would have a mix of both state funds or state and federal. I think the deleb program is think it's a mix. So obviously, if you have more state funds, there's room to use those state funds. That's definitely outside of my wheelhouse. I'm sorry, did you want I answer that question.

[Jennifer Finch (VTrans, Asset Management/Project Delivery)]: For the record, my name is Jennifer Finch, and I work for the Vermont Agency of Transportation. I've been working in asset management for the last fourteen months and now have moved over to project delivery. So just like any other project programmed, we use wellness, where all the information about the current condition of all of our payments in the state go into the system. And then what happens is that based on the budget constraint that we have, we use that system to basically say, here are the projects that should be programmed. We do the same thing with the de lead list. And so what happens is that we get a target and then we go into Bammes, we poll candidates and then we work with our district folks, our folks in maintenance, because they're really the ones that know best about what's going on in the communities and the towns and these roadways. And so they take a list and we kind of collaborate and from there the list is finalized. It typically is state funds and does have winter paving or winter snow does have an impact on how much DLOC we can do. So we release about half the projects early on in the fiscal year, and then we fold, they just need to be second half depending on the snow season and how much money we'll have available towards the end. So it's a very data driven and also very collaborative process.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Thank you very much. You're welcome. Representative McCoy? I'm on the slide talking about the Killington Stockbridge increase. Is that just because the price of materials has increased that much? Or have you I noticed that you're undergoing a treatment revision, whatever that may be,

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: that might reduce the overall cost. Yeah, so as I noted on this slide, the preliminary plan estimate was about 12 years ago. So there's a good amount of this increase that is just from It started as an IRONIN. So the project was programmed just after Irene. We count a preliminary plan estimate in 2014. There was a little bit of expansion to include some box fall alerts and some other drainage work, so that did increase the price slightly, but then inflation took its toll on as well. Okay, so is this slated to spin next year? As of right now, this project should be advertised in calendar year 'twenty seven. I'm sorry, calendar year 'twenty six. This year. Calendar year '6. Pastor Joe. Yes. Yep, that's the time. All right, thank you. Yep. Representative Wells. Got district leveling there. That postponed a major tar job on that surface for several years. Is that what the leveling basically does, holds off before you got to put millions into it to resurface the whole area? Not necessarily. So just because one of these projects goes out now doesn't necessarily change the long term plan for that road. What these are is a little bit more of a nimble response to the roadway. So, for example, there could be a project that we know is out six, seven, eight years, and we need to address the surface so that we can maintain it in the short term. It doesn't necessarily say, Okay, well, was six years from now, now it's going be ten years from now. It's just trying to keep that surface in a maintainable nature. So it does not necessarily tie into pushing anything further out.

[Rob White (VTrans)]: Can I just add to that? Rob White, Vermont Agency of Transportation. The other main factor for these is it's usually a place where we're using a lot of salt because we can't scrape off the road well with a plow. And so there's a balance there. If we're using so much salt that costs a lot of money, it makes sense to put a little bit of money into paving and get a good surface that we can plow that snow off. So there's sort of a balance there

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: when we

[Rob White (VTrans)]: talk about salt usage. That's one of the main reasons.

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: All right, catch us up here. So next we are going to jump into the roadway

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Sorry, Ben, I gotta stop you for a second while we're in 5A then. Sure. These are all shared, in effect, T fund and federal money or. There's three or four projects in here that are pretty good sized. The one on Barrie City and Bethel Brookfield, which is in their state project. They say no $0 for T funds. How does that happen? How do we get more of those? Do we have projects with no T funds if they're moving ahead? Does that mean they're just not going be worked on this year or paid for this year? I thought they would all have to have some level of T fund in here. Just because I thought it doesn't mean it's true.

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: Yeah, without looking at them, it's possible that they're not going to be worked on this year, and that's why they're not shown in the '27 budget.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: But I don't know. Okay. Well, they're all on the first page there on '27, so we can put a tag in that or pin in that and come back to that at some point. There's no T fund money in them, I'd like to replicate those. Thank you. Next.

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: All right. We will start the roadway program. So this will be tab five d in your white books. This year within the roadway program, have an appropriation of $54,000,000 or roughly $54,000,000 This is a decrease from last year's program. Much like the paving program, the funding goes towards the preliminary engineering or the design activities. In the roadway program, there is a bit more substantial right of way work that needs to take place, so that is where some of this funding goes towards. And of course, the construction phase is part of the '27 budget. So what this means from that $54,000,000 is we are showing construction funds in state fiscal 'twenty seven on 47 different projects. In addition, we are showing funding in fiscal 'twenty seven on an additional 32 projects for that design phase and the right of way acquisition phase. The last bullet in the tabulated view on the bottom is just a bigger picture on what the program houses. So there's a total of 135 projects across all fiscal years. So that's not just including state fiscal year '27. That's all across the board. And down in the table view, it gives a breakdown of the projects that we're showing construction funding on and just the general nature of what that project is. So for roadway and intersection improvements, we have five with construction funding this year. Small culverts, there are 10. Ledge and slope stabilization, we have two. Emergency projects, have 29. And we have a miscellaneous category, which is that stormwater flow regulation type category. We have one that is showing construction funds in '27. On to the 10 gs reports for roadway. The first are the new projects in the roadway program as comparison to the '26. Two of these are ERP projects. So what this means is they're permanent fixes to storm events that happened in '23 and '24. And guess that the number there is whether it was a '23 event or a '24 event. So Berrytown ERP '23 is some repairs due to a '23 event. Plainfield ERP '24 is a '24 event. There are two culvert projects that were added. One is an emergent needs, So we noticed that there was a sinkhole culvert around in Moortown. This project is looking to address that. And then there's a Jamaica Culvert project, which is the replacement on Vermont 30. That's just due to the condition of the asset. It's not an ER or a quick emergent response. The condition is deteriorating. We're planning off the project. The last one on this list is the STOW ST project at the top. This is the state funded portion of the work that's been going on in the notch to add hurricane stormwater benefits.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Just back to the roadway projects, just going through them, but Champlain Parkway, that's always been a little bit of hit or miss as far as moving forward with lawsuits. Where do we stand with that?

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: The Champlain Parkway, I Because I see

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: this budget in here for where'd it go? I just had it. For 5,000,000.

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: Yeah, so as far as I'm aware on that project, the construction has been moving forward. I haven't heard of it being pushed out recently. I'm aware of the media on it, but I haven't heard of it delaying at

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: this point.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: I think it's moving forward. Yeah, I'll just mean it's been hit or never really missed, it's been hit. It hasn't gone anywhere, but

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: are there any other projects that are in here?

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: I mean, you sort of glossed over it, as you use the buzzer, is there any other projects that have litigation or any potential things that are going to delay in these projects that you know of?

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: So in the 'twenty seven budget, we would have been looking at the projects to understand what the risk is associated with the schedule. The ones that we're showing with funding in 'twenty seven, the belief is they're in the program because they have a low amount of risk associated with a slip. So there's nothing in there that I'm aware of that has construction funds that could potentially slip. Now, there's, of course, always unknowns with that, but there's nothing that stands out. There are many projects, as I had mentioned before. The roadway program does have a lot of right of way acquisitions typically, So many of those will have to go through some version of a court to get the rights associated. It can be as simple as the property owner is on board and they sign off and we're good to go. In a lot of cases with a lot of property owners, you have a greater risk that somebody's not going to sign on quickly, so we might have to go through a different process with those. And they do run some amount of risk. Those should not or are unlikely to show in the 'twenty seven budget unless we have gone far enough in that process that the risk is incredibly low that they could slide due to some amount of hearing.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Sure, fair enough. Yeah, and if you want to get back to us on the Champlain of where what that hurdle was. I don't know if that was right away acquisition or the project just being sued for the sake of being sued because they didn't want to move forward, but just sort of where that litigation stands. It has been resolved, I'm not quite sure.

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: All right, I'm going to go to the first of the expanded reports in the Roadway program. Just as a quick reminder, this is for anything that is expanded by $5,000,000 or more, or 75% in comparison to last fiscal year. Two of these projects on the list are ER projects. They both can be summarized with basically the same summary. There was an initial estimate that was put in place with our best guess when the project was programmed. Once we started doing a design plan, we had a better understanding of what the impacts would be and what the needs would be out of that project. Since then, the estimate has been updated, and it's increased on these two projects. So that's the Chelsea ER project and the Middlesex ER project. The third on the list is the Fairly IM-ninety one project. This is the massive ledge stabilization job along Interstate 91. We did see a very substantial increase in costs compared to the last fiscal year. Again, this was the initial estimate or the programming estimate at $4,800,000 Once we got into the design, we had a better understanding of what the stabilization measures would be and how much that would actually cost. The price increased just in line with that design and what was needed out there. Moving on to the third 10 gs report, this is the second of the expanded projects. So this is increase of $10,000,000 or more, or 100% increase compared to the preliminary plans. First project on this list does show up on the 10 gs report. It shouldn't. There was a mistake in the estimate saying that the project was going to cost $1 We wish. But unfortunately, that was not true. The actual preliminary plans estimate should have been roughly $560,000 so it shouldn't be on this list. Up next is the Pittsburgh Brandon NH project. This is Segment four reconstruction on US 7, Much like the project, the Killington Stockbridge project that we talked about recently, the preliminary plans estimate came from 2014. So it's twelve years old, so inflation did play a factor in this. And as the design was refined and the impacts were understood more through the preliminary plan or revised preliminary plans into final plans, the cost did increase. And the last two on the list are two culvert projects that have essentially completed construction. So what we're seeing here is the preliminary plan estimate was reflective of what we understood at the time as we continued working with the impacts on the project or refining the design. Cost did go up. What you're seeing for the current estimate in both of these cases is the actual cost to construct the project. So it's the low bid amount on both of these jobs.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Yeah. Representative Casey, please go ahead.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Are those regular culverts? Are they, like, fish culverts? Or are they These would be Concrete? These would be concrete larger. Okay. Alright. Yeah. So they're they're They seem kinda expensive, but I know culverts are expensive, but I'm thinking plastic culverts. I'm even thinking Yeah. And it's and it's hard I under understands completely.

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: Yeah. In this case, these culverts may have started as a smaller diameter. And when I say smaller diameter, I mean it could have been a three to four foot pipe, and then through hydraulic analysis, we realized that they needed to be a concrete box. So these are the larger They're still small culverts, so they're still culverts. But if you look at it, it's almost a bridge.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Did you want to ask, or do want me to I was just going to make up.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: You're good. For

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: those former members that might be watching, this Pittsburgh branding project that has construction money listed in 2026, I think there's a good chance I'm going to see shovels in the ground before the end of this year. And for the next four years thereafter, once we start. So we're that close on that project?

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: We're that close on that project.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Someday you might get a break. If he's not watching, I want to hear about it.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: It's taken twenty years to get to here.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: It's one of the biggest in the book. It's one of the few major reconstruction, there are very few major reconstruction projects in the book.

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: This is stage five, seven This is segment four. They did go, they weren't built in that order, but this is segment four.

[Rob White (VTrans)]: One more after this, correct?

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: Yes, one more rural one after this. Three basically starts around the Route 3 intersection on 7 and then heads north. This one picks up at the end of segment three, so it's tied into segment five and looking back. Which is just north of, I work this morning, Kendall Hill Road.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So go all the way to the high school, all the way to Totten Valley High School?

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: I believe segment five was constructed, this would butt up to that reconstruction.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Well, for those that came before you, it can be done. Thank you. Next.

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: All right. I believe that lands us on 10G4, which are the closed projects or the ones that no longer show construction funding in 'twenty seven after showing before completed projects. Two of these are hard WIC projects. They are emergency permanent jobs, the ERP23s. And then Addison Culp 156, this is one of those odd cases, we talked about it before, where this is a number of actual small diameter culverts that are being replaced ahead of a future paving job. So these are those plastic culverts, not the almost bridge culverts. Just showcasing a couple of projects that we've done, we can skip through these relatively quickly in the interest of time. One of the projects listed as miscellaneous was the South Burlington I'm SWIFR Friend three. SWIFR is an acronym for stormwater flow restoration. So this is a project that's out adjacent to I-eighty 9 addressing some stormwater concerns. This was released as a composite contract with an Essex SPHER project. That one's out on February. So in this imagery, you can tell it's relatively recent because there's some snow on the ground. You can see the gravel wetlands that we put in associated with this project. Next, we'll jump really quickly through a Belvedere job that was finished up trickled into last year. So these are pre construction pictures. This is really addressing the same type of conversation with Williston. So this was a culvert that had been in place for a while, was deteriorating. You can see the inlet in the upper left picture, the outlets in the lower right picture. Whoops. Designed the project, knew that we needed to put in a much larger box culvert. So you can see the construction photos here where we're excavating out the old pipe. The crane is there to set the new pipe. And then you can see the post construction where we did put in that much larger culvert. It's still a culvert. It does kind of look like a bridge, but it culvert is in this case. So some nice imagery using some landscaping on the outlet side, and then on the inlet side, you see some stabilization in front of the culvert. And then very quickly, I like to show this one off because the magnitude of this project is huge. Have some construction images. So this is a straight pull from last year. I did report out on the Fairleaf project, just again to show the scale of how big this ledge is. Those are cars in that leftmost picture. Those are cars at the bottom of that. They are full sized vehicles, like a full sized truck and an excavator, just to give you the scale of the slope. Very quickly, this is on I-eighty 9. We have a construction estimate of almost $15,500,000 Construction started last year. It will spill over into the 2026. I-ninety 1. Just a couple of construction images, again, to showcase something that's a little different than the scale of what we usually do. The little orange dots that I'm not sure how clearly they show up in your pictures or on the screen behind me, those are people scaling the wall on ropes to help put the mesh onto the rock face. In this case, because of the access to the site, we actually had to use a helicopter to bring the mesh in. That was the preferred route route by the contractor. So mesh went up via helicopter. Folks on ropes were actually pinning it to the rock face. So huge projects. Obviously kind of cool because we're using a helicopter and you don't do that every day in transportation projects. Just

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: curious, so this is a contracting company, these are going to be trans. Correct. Are they experienced rock climbers?

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: I believe that they are specialty contractors, that just is what they

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: do. Yes,

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: B TRANS workers. Our B TRANS guys I think took the picture of the helicopter, and we were told we couldn't so get they're

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: boots on

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: the ground.

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: Yes, on the ground. All right, so we will jump into the Traffic and Safety Program budget. This will be tab 5E in your white book. For fiscal 'twenty seven, we have an appropriation of almost $54,000,000 This is an increase of about $8,000,000 in comparison to 'twenty six. Much like the roadway program, this does have significant amounts dedicated to preliminary engineering, right of way acquisitions, and construction, albeit a little bit less on the right of way phase for these projects. The funding is showing up on 20 different construction funding is showing up on 20 different projects in the program. In addition, we have 41 projects that will be receiving funding for the preliminary engineering and right of way acquisition. In the program as a whole, not just including those funded in 'twenty six, we have 95 projects. And then the tabulated view on the bottom is, again, very similar to what was done in Roadway, where just breaks down the projects that have construction funding in fiscal 'twenty seven out

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: of

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: the group of them. So intersection projects or intersection reconstructions, we have three sign replacements. There are two Annually, we have four marking projects. And then there are four safety and HSIP type projects. Moving along to 10G1, which are the new projects that were added to the Traffic and Safety Program. The New England Compass project at the top of this is the development and ongoing maintenance and usage of the advanced transportation management system. And what that boils down to is it's the support to the agency's use of 511 and collecting that data, using the data both to fill into 511 and to support some of our other tools that are out on the interstate. So some of the changeable message signage that's out there, that's run through this project. There are four other projects on this list that are safety related. We have the Middlebury Ripton Guard project that is a guardrail replacement project. Mendon Killington is a safety improvement type project along US 4 between those towns. And then along Vermont 117, there's a breakdown here of NHS versus state. So this is a good example. We talked previously about the nomenclature at the beginning of the number. So Essex Town NH is the NHS portion of Vermont 117. Jericho Richmond STP is the non NHS portion of Vermont 117. It will be the same scope. It is barrier installation and evaluation along 117, but because of the distances and because of that breakdown of NHS versus non NHS, we have to break it out into two projects. Lastly on the list are two federal crash reporting projects that do come through the Traffic and Safety Program, one for federal fiscal 'twenty six and one for federal fiscal 'twenty seven. Those are both labeled as crash reporting. Next, we'll move into 10G2, which is the first of the expanded projects. This is, again, quickly the $5,000,000 increase or 75% increase compared to last budget year. St. Albans is the only one that lands on this list. This project was initially programmed at roughly $3,300,000 It went into the scoping phase. Through scoping, we found that the preferred alternative was a roundabout installation, which increased the cost of the project. Through scoping, we had a better sense on what the impacts would be and we could walk away with a little more confidence in that $10,000,000 price tag on that one. Up next is 10G3. These are expanded by $10,000,000 or 100% compared to the preliminary plan phase. A couple of these were seen last year, and they are in the construction phase or moving towards the completion phase. So up first is the Bennington Peanut Roundabout. This was on this list. The scope remained consistent throughout design, but the low bid came in higher. We basically took the preliminary plans. There was some increase in cost due to the impacts that we saw with the project. Then the low bid amount is shown on there, this pop up, which says almost $6,500,000 That project is in construction. It is anticipated to be complete, I believe, this year at the end of this season. We also had a Bennington Signal project. This one is complete or mostly complete through construction. Same type of situation where the preliminary plans came in at roughly $2,300,000 through planned refinement and additional design, additional understanding of the impacts, the price increased to what you see for the low bid price of $4,900,000 Moving on, the Colchester project is the DDI, or the Diverging Diamond Interchange. So this is at Exit 16. A portion of the reason why this lands on the list is much like Killington Stockbridge and Pittsburg Brandon. The preliminary plan estimate came out of 2014. So it saw an increase in cost due to time, partially, and the additional impacts that were out there. So there's stormwater infrastructure that's being input, and then understanding the traffic impacts better as we went through the design phase. Increased the cost along with the time matter. Finally is the Williston project. This is also out in construction. The scope was the same from the start to where we landed. It is a traffic heavy project, so there's a lot of work that's being done, a lot of impact to the price, and a tough area to work in due to all of the traffic. So that was a portion of why this one laid it on the list. But again, that is the low bid amount reflected on this report. Moving on to 10G4 within the Traffic and Safety Program this year, we do not have any that have listed as completing construction, though we should have some very close, and it will be next year. And then just quickly, we'll jump through a couple of good activities that we've been doing over the last couple of years. So this is the DDI project. I'm sure that many of you have heard about it in the news or heard about it at various times. This is at Exit 16, putting in the diverging diamond interchange. There was a contract one that took care of some utilities. This is the start of contract two. You can see in the upper left picture here that they're blasting the ledge, getting ready for the new layout to be there. Just a couple of different images of that. On the lower left, you see one of the massive stormwater ponds that are being installed with this project. It's due to stormwater permitting that we had to take on based on the expansion of the roadway surface. So just a couple of cool construction shots on that particular project. I'm stealing this one. I'm happy to go again. I noted this down on the right hand side of this. But this project is actually in the interstate bridge program, but it was PM in my shop that did it because of the overlap with some of the intersections. So this is Exit 17 or near Chimney Corners, where we did put in a new interstate bridge on US 2. Along with that new bridge, there was some work that took place out on the Intersection Of 2 And 7 to increase some capacity out there, put in a new signal system, and then there were some interchange reconfigurations, which has landed in this is the almost completed image. There is some lighting that still has to go out, but nice layout. Again, it is in the Interstate Bridge program, but we like to take credit for it because it's a nice, flashy, cool project. And then finally, we'll just talk quickly about one that's coming out this year. This is the Milton Hourglass project. So this is US 7 And Railroad And Middle Street. We're doing a reconfiguration of the intersection here. You can see it's kind of a non typical type intersection. The project did go out to bid. We have an apparent low bid at this time. We're going through the bid analysis phase. So things right now are apparent low bid and working towards the pre construction phase. The plan is for the work to begin the 2026, and it will continue into and through the 2027. And then just to get an idea of what we're going to be building out here, so you can see in the dotted lines in the middle of the green swath here, those are the old roadways coming into that weird cross, which would be to the East of US 7. We're now pulling those apart. There's a green space that's being created in there. And then there's a new road on the northern part of the intersection, which will be Whisper Lane extension. And then to the south, there's a town new road being added down on the southern part of this intersection. That brings me to the conclusion of my presentation.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Just a couple questions that I don't see in here. Local projects, not necessarily my district, my neck and hair, 3346. You familiar with that, those three forty six? Just wondering where that is. People on the select board are always calling me up, hammering, when is this road gonna get paid? Do we know

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: when? I'm not familiar with it. What town did you say

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: it was?

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: Onoll. Onoll. Room 346. Not one that I'm aware of or that I've heard of yet.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Sorry, I got a screen monitor.

[Rob White (VTrans)]: That?

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Happy to do.

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: You said it's a local project, can I ask? Is it don't know. It's a

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: state road, but I don't know, the town might What really? 346.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: 36.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, the town might be local. Okay. But yeah, no, we really need an answer to that. And then just another project, roundabouts on, I guess it's 7A, Hardwood Hill, or Northside Drive. There was three roundabouts there that proposed, one directly right on Route 7, and two are off of

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Route 7. What town?

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Bennington. And we just signed off on the preferred design. Where is that in the next phase? Last year there was sort of like seed money. I don't see any money for this year's budget to sort of advance those residents?

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: Yeah, so that project was working through the scoping phase. I believe the scoping has pleaded or is near completing, which basically takes it to the end of that phase. At this time, there wasn't a spot in the budget that we saw quite yet, so at least within the next three years within the budget, we didn't see the opening for We just have an unknown time on the construction. There's no funding in

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: what you're saying for at least three years.

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: Yes.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Like that, but

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: You have to bypass. Yeah, you're over the yardstick.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: All right, yeah, $3.46. Definitely better be happening.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Anyone else have questions?

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Temporary Yeah.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Thank you very much.

[Matt Rogaczyk (Program Manager, VTrans Highway Safety & Design)]: Thank you.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Covered it all for anything? Yeah. Then we are at school of health, and we are adjourned for this afternoon. For an hour, a break?