Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Good afternoon, we're back from our quick break there. We're continuing our budget walkthrough and next up is the aviation program with Evan Robinson. He's the aviation program manager. So he's going to be walking through his budget. Take it away.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Thank you. I'm Evan Robinson, Agency of Transportation Aviation Program. And I'm joined here today off to the side here by John Nami, senior project manager for the aviation program. Thanks for taking the time to listen. And just a little brief background As our budget pertains to our relationship with the FAA, Federal Aviation Administration, we work hand in hand with our regional airports office to develop a capital improvement plan. That's continual communication on a monthly basis with them, looking at anywhere from a five to ten year horizon into the future. So many of the projects listed here are in that capital program. And again, just the relationship in prioritizing with the FAA funded through the airport improvement program. So I'm gonna jump right in to our proposed projects, these will be in alphabetical order as listed in the white book here. And I'm going to start by discussing a project we have slated for Bennington, the WH Morris Airport. Good story, Paul. Yeah. Good complaint. 2020, FY 2027. So we've done a stroke of work at Bennington in the last decade, including runway extension and rehabilitation, as well as the recently completed terminal terminal apron reconstruction we did last summer, new pavements in Bennington. And with that, we're ready to look at what's in store for the next decade in Bennington. With that, we'll be working on the starting of the master plan update for Bennington. That'll help inform the next decade there. It'll help identify facilities, infrastructure, and safety priorities, as well as looking for opportunities for expanded economic development to bring to that airport. That'll be in conjunction with the agency, with local stakeholders, local planning commissions, etcetera. So excited to look for the future there. T Fund split, with most FAA federally eligible projects, they're at a 90 fivefive federal state split. So the funding there, see T fund is 5% of the anticipated cost of the project. So just 5,992, T Fund with 113,843 federal share, with a total of 119,835 for this upcoming year. Just a general question.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: There are no formula funds for the FAA that you get. These are all grants that you write, right?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: That's a really great question. I'm sorry I didn't lead off with explaining that a little better. So the FAA funding comes from three different sources. We have a state apportionment. There's an apportionment. Yep, so there is an apportionment. And then we also have a non primary entitlement, which are essentially formula funds. And then because we're the sponsor of 10 airports, we manage those funds on a system level. So we have a little bit of flexibility with those funds for the whole system itself from year to year. But the lion's share of the federal funding for the bigger projects, for the big construction, the runways, that comes from discretionary funding from the FAA, are competitive that we sometimes apply for. But that's also that conversation with the FAA where they're looking at what's going on in the region, the New England Airports region. And so that's why that relationship with them is really important to understand, hey, what year is that big project going to fit within the FAA's budget as well as the state? The state's going to match

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: to those bigger projects. So we get some formula funds, some general funds, and those typically you can apply where you need some on operations and some basic repairs, and then you have grants for larger projects.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Yeah, so not on operations. The operations of the airport comes from the T funds, but for various projects, whether it's a planning grant, design grant, or actual construction of something, those come from some combination of all of those funding sources from the FAA. It's pretty dynamic. And sometimes there's more than one FAA funding source and multiple grants for one project throughout its life cycle.

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

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Yeah. Did that answer

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: your question? Yes. Yeah. Great.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: This year, we're moving to the EF Nap Airport in Berlin at the top of the hill here. We currently have we currently have obstructions, known obstructions in the 20 to one surface, which is an approach ratio for airports coming airplanes coming into the airport. And we've identified those obstructions in an obstruction study. And now we're pursuing the rights through navigation easements to mitigate those obstructions that are that are in the approach right now. And these are to the South of the airport, South Southwest, and we are currently working on the appraisals for those identified parcels. Once your appraisals are complete, we'll begin negotiations with landowners pursue these avigation easements.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: Looking at the slide, which way is that looking?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: So from left to right, to throw my time out. If we were standing at the left of the image you all are seeing,

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: and we were

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: facing the end of the runway towards the green shaded area, we would be looking to the Southwest. Okay.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: So where are you looking to purchase easements? Like people's homes? Or just Sure. Vegetation?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Yeah, so these would be to mitigate very pointed and specific areas of vegetation where trees are growing. So the easements themselves wouldn't typically be for the whole property. It would be a small footprint of the parcel. So we have to we have to survey the whole parcel, and then we narrow into the area that we need an easement on. Yeah, so.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: Thank you. Yeah, of course.

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: Representative Wood. Yeah, so just to make sure I'm understanding, so the state needs to purchase a partial easement on a private property so that they can pet a tree?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Yeah, so we have an obligation by operating these airports under a federal sort of regulatory set and a federal framework, we have an obligation to protect the airspace for pilots utilizing that public asset, and that is a part of it. So in many instances at all of our airports, we have what they call avigation easements, and it's exactly that. It's rights to mitigate or manage the airspace to protect that safe approach path to the airport.

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: And many of those do fall on private home or parcels of property. So these easements are on one end or the other end of the runway? I know you were describing it, but I was having a hard time Yeah, orienting

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: so in this particular case, it would be for airplanes approaching or departing directly to that specific end of the runway. And there are easements laterally as well that we have. You can kind of picture airspace protection as like the stadium. So there's like a stadium that protrudes out from all the airports. And depending on the object or the hazard and the safety priority of that hazard, we may pursue easements at any part of that stadium, particularly on the runway ends. Moving forward down to Rutland, Southern Vermont Regional and North Clarendon. As many of you all know, but I would just like to remind folks, Rutland is home to our only air taxi service. We have Cape Air that runs in and out of there. So you may notice sort of some things that Rutland has that the other airports don't require. It's part of our our federal partnership for that air park airport. One of them specifically is maintaining an aircraft rescue and firefighting vehicle, and that's staffed by Rutland City Fire Department. So every so often, on a cadence determined in that capital improvement plan, the airport is eligible for an upgraded piece of equipment down there. And in this case, we have applied for that grant and the contract has been awarded and we're expecting to take delivery of a new ARF truck duly named in December coming year. Yes. Yes. And so that would require the match funds there from the state to support that. And that is a requirement for the daily scheduled air service into Rutland is for us to maintain that capability.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: Representative Pouech or Representative Pouech?

[Representative Chris Keyser (Member)]: So just trying to understand how this is set up. I see the prior appropriations, so to speak, are for master plan update, for planning and for things like that. When I go down to Rutland Regional, what I see is law enforcement. I mean, that's not necessarily planning or construction, but that's operations. So are the numbers we're seeing here what each airport gets for complete dollars from the state and federal government?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Only related to the specific projects that are here, right?

[Representative Chris Keyser (Member)]: Okay, so that means law enforcement, which is the manning of the DSA. Is that what we're talking about?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Yeah, absolutely. And I can surely get to explaining that. Absolutely.

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

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: The next item on our list is

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: was there another question?

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Yes. So Burlington Airport's not under your purview. Rutland Airport is the only one that has commercial service. Is there any expectation that that commercial service out of Rutland might expand to other, like to Boston, something like that?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: So that currently is Rutland runs three flights a day to Boston. It's part of the essential air service. So connecting rural communities to large hub airports like some in New York will go to JFK or Albany. But for here, that's been determined kind of the most direct route. It's part of the Cape Air Routines Boston. So from you can jump on three times a day, hit the Boston and then head wherever.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: I was thinking Kate Lalley, like going to Nantucket

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: or something.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: They do have a big presence there.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: From Rutland, it's just the Boston back and forth.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Correct. Three a day.

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: Yeah, just wondered, did they actually land at Logan Airport?

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: That's a

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: great question. Yeah, right to Logan. Representative

[Representative Chris Keyser (Member)]: Keyser? I would just like to inform the committee that Rutland Airport and that service is probably one of the easiest things to get out of town. You park for free. It's about 100 pardon me. Gonna be addressed to

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: our witness with a long winded question at the end of the day. And it

[Representative Chris Keyser (Member)]: appears that besides the three round trips that we make, is it true that we also have I know this answer to this question,

[Representative James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: so I can't answer

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Representative Keyser, that's a floor rule. That's not a committee rule. So it

[Representative Chris Keyser (Member)]: is my understanding that they also store a plane there so that it can always get out in the morning. Most always get out in the morning, and I used to rely on that quite a bit. So is there any hope or what needs to be done to get more traffic through that airport?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Structure of how Cape Air operates and the frequency of their operation into where they operate is negotiated with FAA and the City of Rutland every approximately four years. So I can't speak directly to if there's any future plans or expansion, but at that time, kind of where they would serve and how and how frequent would be determined in those contract negotiations from any prospective airline wanting to do air taxi at Rutland.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: I'm also on the airport committee.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: At Rutland, we have an engineered materials arresting system, otherwise known as an EMAS. If at the end of the south end of the runway, we are limited and there's a very big retaining wall, so there is not an appropriate length for a safety area or overrun. So to be compliant with FAA specifications, we had to install an arresting system. Think of a runaway truck ramp for a jet that would overrun and it's an engineered material. We have annual maintenance on that, that's state funded. And the only way to retain eligibility after its service life with the feds to get them to put a new one in is to follow the recommended manufacturers maintenance of that. So that's the T fund allocation for that. Go. Oh, sorry. Is

[Unknown Committee Member]: it is it like a map or something? Is it a is it a is it a a map that

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: you No. They're these like individual blocks that are kind of sunk into the ground flush with the end of the runway out of an engineered material. I don't know the recipe, but they're these individual blocks where the weight of the jet kind of sinks down into them. So it's like a fancy pea gravel sort of I'm making the analogy to the runaway truck ramp, but it kinda it safely kinda cushions and has the jet sink into that.

[Unknown Committee Member]: It's easy on the plane.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Yeah. So that's I don't know.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: That's No. No. It'll stop.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Fortunately, but it's designed to stop at varying speeds. Think at that point life safety is the biggest priority to prevent the overrun off the retaining wall. If the plane gets damaged If

[Unknown Committee Member]: you hold a plane, you might

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: feel differently. Alright. The upcoming, we also have the large area in front of the terminals, the terminal apron. Think of it as the big airplane parking lot where after the airplanes exit the runway, they come and park. We have a big rehab. The construction of that would be 2027. So it would split twenty seven-twenty eight. This is a portion of that federal project. And the FAA has indicated that they would be preparing to give us a large discretionary grant to cover the costs of that total project. So this is approximately the first sort of third of that funding. The second half would would come in FY twenty eight. The Clarendon Pvase to PAPI upgrade. PAPI, there's a picture of one actually in the top there in the snow. It's a lighting system that gives pilots a visual reference as to their vertical guidance into the airport. Currently right now, the Runway 1 end, which means landing to the north, kind of the preferred route coming from Boston, doesn't actually have that visual vertical guidance. So this has been identified as a huge safety upgrade for pilots utilizing the Rutland Airport. And we're in the midst of conducting the upgrades to that system. These are funds to keep that project moving along. We also oh, I forgot to mention back to the apron. There is a diagram of kind of the area of impact on the bottom right of the screen you'll see. It's just the the concept and the layout of the payments there. Moving forward to another obstruction study. Again, our priority is safety and keeping these airports and protecting the approaches and surrounding surfaces. Prior to any obstruction removal, as discussed in previous slides, the first part is understanding where the obstructions are. And we do that by way of an obstruction study. So utilizing consultants, we're able to determine areas surrounding the airport that have obstruction impacts. That's a representation on the upper right of data received that helped to identify obstructions around the MALSAR, which is the lighting system that guides airplanes in those really bright lights like by the Shah's parking lot here in Berlin. You have those bright lights. We are now aware that we have instructions we need to remove to keep that lighting system operational. And then to answer, kind of touch on what you had brought up earlier, moving down as part of the obligation to be compliant with the Part 139, which is again relates to the air taxi service that brought in. We do have law enforcement, contracted law enforcement services that we provide via the Rutland County Sheriff's Department to be present during screening and boarding of every K Fire flight, so three times a day. So these are T funds that we have obligated for that service.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: So TSA isn't there and you use sheriffs instead?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: No, TSA is there. They have full time employees there and they're the ones that do the screening, the onboarding bag check, all that good stuff. But just for again, additional security and safety measures, this is again, part of the federal guidelines on that system is the presence of a law enforcement officer, a badge law enforcement officer, to be able to support TSA in their need, a conflict arise.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: Representative Paul? So I know we've brought this up several years in a row, but my understanding is because we have that commercial taxi service, came in, they had to purchase a larger snow removal piece of machinery that does not fit in the current shed that they put it in, And it's I know it was bid a couple years ago, but it was more expensive than what we had in the budget cut. Is it anywhere in the budget now?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Yeah, that's a great question. So it's not currently in the budget right now. And just to address some of the points you brought up, it does fit completely inside the current building. It takes a very skilled operator, which we have fortunately. We're very thankful for that. So it is safe. Our asset is secure. We can keep it warm. We can work on it. Albeit not ideal, I will say. Understanding the future needs of SRE is something we were going to continue to look into. You're right, the costs based on kind of the proposed work were very high. That is a conversation we don't have directly addressed in fiscal year twenty twenty seven, but it certainly, I assure you, we do talk about it for the future. And we would ideally like to see a scenario there in which we could accommodate that equipment better in the

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: future. Good. Thank you.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Alright. Moving forward, we have Northeast Kingdom International in Coventry. And we have here something that is very important and often, very often we hear from pilots of the importance of establishing and maintaining our instrument approaches. And that means an instrument approach is for a pilot trying to get into an airport safely during inclement weather with low visibility, they would fly under an instrument flight plan. So what we have existing and ideally because weather conditions vary, you have an instrument approach to ideally both ends of the runway. Currently, on Northeast Canada International, we only have one right now. And what happens is when an airplane comes in, they have to do a circle to land, which means they come out and they ideally pop out of the clouds and then they circle around and come back. What having a second instrument approach would do would allow for better safety margins on those approaches. It would allow folks to get in and out of the airport on a more predictable cadence. They would have more options. And this was just for context. The agency had applied through the FAA flight procedures groups. That's the group in the federal government that establishes these as part of the runway extension back in the mid twenty teens, I think fifteen or '16. And then at the end of that, we had a request in to develop a flight, an instrument flight procedure for Runway 18, which is back to the south kind of from the Canadian border heading south. And that sat in the federal queue for over five years, just about six. And then last spring, we finally received an email that said due to capacity issues, they weren't going to be able to support us with that request. And aside from like very high priority procedure development, they're referring airport sponsors, which is who we are to utilize approved third party contractors to develop the flight procedures. So this is something new, but will kind of remain a topic moving forward as us investing in utilizing T funds solely to develop that flight procedure. The good news is from what I'm hearing, once we invest that money, the turnaround is very quick using the third party vendor. So we're trying to tie up loose ends on an existing project from almost a decade ago. And we would love to see that safety enhancement for pilots in Northeast Kingdom. It also having solid instrument procedures really relates to increased potential for business development. Bigger jets can more consistently use those airports, which helps again support the notion of bringing economic opportunity to the airports. Representative

[Unknown Committee Member]: what?

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: Yeah. Just on the subject of economic development, which is a bigger jet when they land at Coventry, for example?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Yeah. So varies. I don't have that exact number, but landing the of a jet is I have to rewind a little bit. At our airports, we have most of them, we have what's called a fixed space operator. That's a business on the airport that represents they accommodate and they handle those jets. And so we contract for their service through a lease agreement. And then in that lease agreement, the FBO has the operating rights to administer landing fees. It's kind of part of a revenue strategy for that business to operate on the airport. So the agency doesn't directly administer or handle those landing fees associated with the jets at the airport, but that's a service that is contracted to that FBO to do that.

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: And does the agency get a cut of the revenue that MSPM would bring in?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: No, not relating to landing fees.

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: I did a little bit of poking around and trying to understand what it is some while ago, but it seems like there's a cost per 1,000 pounds. So it didn't seem like, just looking at all these airports and planes coming in, maybe that's a revenue opportunity. Didn't look like there's a lot of money to be made in that, but I just was kind of curious. Curious

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: as

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: Okay, it sounds like, so any revenue that comes into an FBO stays with them, and right now we've got 10 airports run by AOT. And how many that have FBOs?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: I may have to double check, but I think five established FBOs at this point. Yeah, and certainly looking to bring FBO services to the other airports as well.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: Thank you.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Okay.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: So just to expand on that, so five of them, we think, at FBOs, does the state pay them any money, or is the deal, hey, you can come in, you can sell your fuel, you can, you know, service planes, get this the funds for that, whatever they decide to charge. So does the state pay for the f no.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: No. The airf- So that's

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: the sort of deal. You come in, you run the airport basically, and you get the fees from the planes that land?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Well, the running of the airport, the operational, the maintenance of the airport, and the kind of the policy administration that stays within the agency. The FBO, would think of it as sort of the public facing interface for pilots visiting the area. So the FBO is the one that deals with the customer, so to speak. VTrans doesn't have a customer service presence on the airport. We have friendly faces and we interact with public all the time, but we don't set that fee schedule or any of those rates. And the FBOs pay us. In their lease agreement, they pay us. So there is revenue coming through the state.

[Representative James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: You guys did a great job. You built a new terminal up there. $2,000,000. Great job there. I toured it a few weeks ago. You know what they really need up there about a 100 yards from there is their mechanics area. They need a washroom.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: Who do we talk to?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Oh, a washroom in the

[Representative James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: A washroom, small bathroom off their mechanics area. So in this time of year, they

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: gotta go a

[Representative James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: 100 yards to get facilities.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Oh, in the state owned hangar, you mean there? Yeah. Yep. Yep. I mean, that's something that we're always certainly open to entertaining and based on funding and availability and priority, that's certainly something we could take a look into, absolutely. I mean, I talk frequently with the FBO, I but wouldn't in particular hasn't been brought up with me. But as always, we remain open to discuss. I heard

[Representative James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: that manager to push his angle on that or if he's

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Yeah, certainly. Certainly.

[Representative James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: I mean, the waterline is

[Representative Chris Keyser (Member)]: right next to it.

[Representative James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: He'd probably do the whole thing for 25.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Yeah. I mean, we we absolutely can look into that. Again, owning 10 airports in in over 40 buildings, we certainly have a lot to consider with priority, but I'm always willing to talk about it in

[Representative James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: great low. Great job there.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I think the pilots there really like it. But absolutely, I would I would fully encourage just that that person bringing that up with with my group and talk

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: about it. Okay. Thanks.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Ian, where would I find that 80,000? I just wanna see the line up.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Oh, sorry about that. It would be Coventry, A B F Y. So as you come down here, it's about the eighth line down Coventry ABFY 27, running with one eight instrument approach.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: So is it in

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: the top list but not in the breakout list? Yeah. Saw it

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: in Oh, the yeah. Sorry. This one is not in the breakout list.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Alright.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Moving forward here. Franklin County State Airport, lots of capital improvements there in the last decade, well, five years really. And we do have another large scale project that we're working on the design of right now currently, and that's a to complete the perimeter fence at the Franklin County Airport. This will offer users of the airport increased security and safety enhancement by fencing in the airport. We have well known issues with deer up at the airport there, and this is going to mitigate that risk significantly with a wildlife spec fence to complete that.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: Is this one we were at last

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: year? Yep, it is.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Want me to go on the wheelchair? I'm gonna give the field trip responsibilities to somebody else. Are you volunteering?

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: No, suggest that we should go and fly to each of the airports and see and really, that's important to take care that. Closely. If only

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: they are in the ground.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: And an electric?

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: Yeah. What if they Activated.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Do have a bird problem up there in that airport?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Yeah. I wasn't I wasn't prepared today to discuss that.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I just found out about it today. So I don't even know the details.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: And so this project will be going to advertisement in March. The construction will be next construction season, 2728. This is a portion of this project as well. So we split for 27.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Miles. It's the it's the round the other flag in the Oh,

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: yeah. That's yep. That's called a segmented circle. And from the air, are it what it does is identify the wind sock. You can see the wind sock sits right in the middle of it. So it kind of directs the pilot's attention to that. And from that patterning, they can determine which traffic pattern it is. So airplanes, as they fly around, they're supposed to follow a specific traffic pattern. So their visual cues, so a pilot who doesn't have the information pulled up in their directory can say, okay, that's left traffic. Caledonia County Airport, pursuing another master plan update there as well to inform the future planning efforts there, infrastructure needs, safety needs. And yeah, so that's another similar to the Bennington, a $5.95 split, total cost under 50,000. Middlebury State Airport, we are excited to hopefully implement the fuel farm utilizing the remainder of these funds for FY '27. That would be to restore fuel service that's been out of commission for several years at Middlebury. And moving down oh,

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: question. So what have they been doing?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Without fuel? Yeah, those pilots have been without self serve fuel for over three years now.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: So what do they have to deliver to Yeah,

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: so there's a very temporary and inconvenient arrangement where there's an FBL on-site that does have a truck that's administering it kind of by appointment only and at a significantly higher rate to that. So yeah, I know it's certainly a very, very big asset. Fuel farms are a priority for the airports, the beating heart of the airport. I mean, it drives regular activity, business development, kind of all the essential functions. So it would be akin to driving off to somewhere and you know you can't fill up when you get there. It can be certainly tough. Be advantageous to restore that service. I'll try this question for her.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Back to Caledonia. A a couple of years ago there was discussion of, I think, Beta Technologies partnering and there were some language that we had to have in the bill for that. What's the status on that?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: That's very relevant. The status is that we're still in communication and negotiation with the FAA on that potential sale to a private, not beta directly, but a different entity. I don't have an update beyond that. There is still regular discussion on it. But at this time, we're moving forward with our planning efforts as if we will retain it into the future. That's well needed at Caledonia in the coming years. Middlebury Terminal. Is something Middlebury Airport is the only airport in Vermont that well, aside from Island Pond, sorry, Island Pond is my favorite. I just need to say that. But it is the only public use airport that the state owns in Vermont that does not have a terminal building. So there's no public space for a pilot to arrive and transition from air to ground. And this is a really important upgrade for the community. Thinking about these airports as community access points, we want to make it safe and easy for folks to arrive here. So we're actually after a competitive grant. We've just submitted an application for FAA funding to have a terminal at Middlebury, and this was modeled very closely the terminal we just constructed up in Coventry. In the funds here, should we be successful for this grant, this is the first portion of that. The construction would be fast paced, occur in 2027, again over '27 and '28. And we're very hopeful for a successful award for that competitive grant. In Vermont, the only state that has not had an American terminal program grant awarded out of the whole country. So we do hope the FAA notices that.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Yes. What's Fair Haven? Fair Haven's got an airport so it's

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: something that's privately owned. I don't think it's established as a public use, yeah,

[Unknown Committee Member]: they're just part the best. Need to chuck and stuff out there. I

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: don't remember the number of Representatives, Casey, but we, a couple of years back, received some testimony on the amount of actual landing strips and privately owned and whatnot. There is a document out there that outlines the, I don't remember how many hundreds of them there are. But there is documentation out there and some info on just how many fields that are privately owned that are used by aircraft. It was quite interesting.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Moving along, instrument approach and PAPI, again for Middlebury. Middlebury is our only state airport that has no established instrument flight procedure, so I won't reiterate, but again, the importance of that is a huge safety enhancement for the airport. And then PAPI, which is that vertical guidance, that visual vertical guidance for pilots coming in. Again, we're just starting conversations. There's many steps involved with that, but these are kind of planning for those two additions at Middlebury. Construction this coming year, we have a grant in hand and a contract awarded for a 1,000 foot parallel taxiway extension at Morrisville Stowe State Airport. This is a huge safety enhancement. It keeps aircraft off of the runway for back taxiing, gives them another exit off the runway, as well as this was identified as a safety priority from the FAA. So we're moving forward with the construction of that this coming summer. Moving on down to, we have the South Burlington, Leahy, South Burlington International Airport. Dollars 500,000 is a legislative pass through through AOT Aviation to support the match for Burlington's federal capital improvement projects.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: I'm gonna guess that's probably not the total match that they have for some of the projects.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Correct. Just it's a portion of exactly. Springfield Hartness. Again, pursuing avigation easements on either end of the runway on the core of five different properties, believe, to mitigate obstructions that are associated and we need to do before we gear up for a really large scale runway, full depth reconstruction, which will occur the 2029. So we have to protect the airspace first, then they'll give us the large discretionary funding to redo the runway there. Harness is the second largest runway in Vermont, just behind Burlington. It's I think 5,500 feet. And we have a significant amount of jet traffic, particularly related to right across the road. We have the industrial park and their folks certainly use that runway to access and to do business in the industrial park. So So we're after the easements. We are in the midst of surveying, then we can go to appraisals and then property acquisitions. Final design for the Runway 523 reconstructions, funding to support that development throughout this coming year as well. That's the next line item. And as mentioned prior, we have a significant need to upgrade the existing fuel, the fuel service infrastructure at our airports. And we have Springfield has one along with others that are their underground storage tanks that are beyond their useful life. We have lots of ongoing maintenance to those, and we're looking to prioritize getting those above ground and into kind of a new area, a new to provide reliable service to our pilots. So this will be a theme in coming years, as has been the installation of self fueling facilities. And at this time, we're planning to do half of the project in fiscal year 'twenty seven. And then again, the second half of the funding we would request in fiscal year twenty eight as well.

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: So just a clarification. So this will be a self automated fuel farm, so you don't need an FBO to do that. I can just land my plane, go over it, fill up my

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Yes, so depending on the size of the aircraft, who flies in. But certainly for the person who has their own aircraft, they could pull up to a credit card, fill their own aircraft for sure.

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: So is that the trend? Are we more mobile phones are going in that direction or is it just

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Yes, technology is similar to how you would pull up with a car. There's certainly a convenience involved around self fueling. However, they go more hand in hand. It's like some users would prefer to fuel their own, some would not. Depends on comfort level, depends on type of aircraft, type of fuel. There's a lot of nuance to it, but absolutely more people would certainly use it for that fuel if it was self. Because if it's after hours, they know they can come into reliable. It's a huge safety feature for the pilot saying, oh boy, better stop and get gas if they know they can just get it. That's huge advantage for use of the airport.

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: And how many of our airports have those right now? Self fueling?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Yeah, so self fueling, some quick math, we have seven that have self fueling currently. Two are out of service, Middlebury and Caledonia, and then Island Bond doesn't have any fuel available. Interesting

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: topic. So in Rutland, we have commercial service. Do any of the other airports have like UPS and those sort of delivery sort of activities happening regularly?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Yeah, that's a great question. We have two airports that have daily, well Monday through Friday, daily freight operations. EFNAP at Berlin has a Mera flight, which is contracted UPS and same with Rutland. So they both have daily freight operations. So a lot of the packages folks in the region from those hubs certainly have had their factories arrive at our airports. Alright, getting into some statewide line items. We have a facilities budget of $300,000 which is our, you know, the cost of utilities and basic operating costs for our over 40 buildings that are on each of these airports. Statewide administration costs, this is payroll personnel costs, 3,021,052. And then we have our aviation operations budget, which is all the money is used to maintain the various operational functions of the airport, snow removal, grounds maintenance, equipment, vehicle fees. We use it to manage our assets such as beacons, navigational aids, weather stations, funds to just kind of keep it operating safe and compliant. Oh, and as well, the agency's UAS program, the operation of that is in that fund there as well. Statewide, the Civil Air Patrol grant, 60,000 annually. We contract with Civil Air Patrol to meet AOT statutory obligation to conduct aeronautical emergency related response and search and rescue. So Civil Air Patrol has a presence on many Vermont airports and should the need arise, they're able to provide the statutory obligation again to conduct search and rescue or response to a downed aircraft, etc. As mentioned earlier regarding some of the navigation easements, aviation has that obligation to maintain those approaches. And as we take on projects, the feds will pay for it once through their capital improvement plans, but then it's our responsibility to maintain those. So we've decided to dedicate statewide funding for the various easement maintenance projects that we have. It could be a right of way where we have a safety beacon we need to work on, that right of way to make sure the vegetation is clear, or it could be on the end of an approach where there are obstructions growing. So those are funds specifically dedicated to the right of way and vegetation management. This coming year, we're really excited to, oh, sorry. Sorry. Don't be sorry. I'm sorry. I missed you.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Is there highway garage for your vehicles, pickup trucks and stuff to maintain them like the highway crews do?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Yeah. So for our pickups itself, we get them through Central Garage as well as BGS Fleet Services. We have a mix of both.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: Very

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: excited about pavement condition index study for our airports and pavement management plan. We are reestablishing a current baseline of the conditions of our airports and the pavements on our airports this coming year. And we'll utilize that to inform our short and long term planning of pavements. It'll also provide data that's important to the FAA for funding of various projects. And next up here, another project that was started this past year and is gaining a lot of traction. Some folks in the room may have heard, apparently taking a really deep dive in looking at the existing aviation policies airports, and that could be the rules and regulations of what goes on on the airport, how leases are classified on the airports, how we capture different user groups on the airports, other items such as commercial minimum standards, such as what are the things that accommodate successful businesses on the airports and help drive economic development. Taking a big look into the policies and we're updating them through formal rulemaking process in consultation with Vermont Aviation Advisory Council and public users of the airports through stakeholder engagement to develop a modernized set of aviation policies that really captures where we are today and how we can be transparent and adapt them for the future of aviation in Vermont. Many of the policies in which we're relying on, specifically commercial minimum standards, last updated in 1992. And it's just really a good time to look at how we can make sure these community federal and state assets are kind of maximized and accommodate aviation in Vermont. This is work done with consultants that we work through on a weekly session, and we anticipate that project to wrap up in FY twenty seven, hopefully sooner.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: Representative Burch?

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: Yeah, would this time say the economic impact? To the airports?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: No, this wouldn't be a direct economic impact study at the airports, no. But the most recent economic impact study would certainly inform portions of the policy development that go along with it. And last but not least, we have three years of pavement maintenance. This is an annual pavement maintenance. They're federal projects. Again, a lot of what the state apportionment is used on. And we have the second half of a fiscal year twenty six project at the same time as the first half of FY twenty seven project. And then we're planning for fiscal year twenty eight kind of all at the same time. So this just represents annual pavement maintenance that occurs at various airports throughout the state on a rotating basis. So that's funding in our capital improvement plan for keeping these places open.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: So

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: approximately how many feet does this pavement budget

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: cover? 2,000 feet, 5,000 feet? So it's very dependent on condition of pavement. But typically, it'll be anywhere from two to five airports per year will identify the priorities, right? Where if one has like a particularly bad spot, we may focus on that and just mitigate that issue. But again, we try to get them on an alternating cycle where we're attending to the needs. It's crack sealing block patching. This isn't like big repaving. It's just in repainting some

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: of the markings as they've fade. I also noticed some look like they're cement, and some are asphalt.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: They're all asphalt. That's perhaps just a different color, different aggregate that was used, a different level of sun fading. Are regular airflowers?

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: No, big ones, like Boston, Mollie.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Oh yeah, those would be grouped at Salt Lake. It is outstroke, I believe, yeah. And that sort of concludes my I know we've overrun time, I'm open for questions, that does conclude my presentation.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, one last question, sorry. So it is like the big hiring business now right in South Burlington. My understanding, do they have some chargers and different things at your some of these airports?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Yeah, we have one currently installed at Rowland Southern Vermont Regional. And that's part of kind of looking forward for aviation in Vermont as we do these master plans is looking at opportunities to make a more robust EV charging infrastructure to support kind of the electrification of the aviation fleet. We don't have any more directly. We have one, not a beta, it's a big charger, but we have one ancillary charger for another electric aircraft at Morrisville currently. We're looking at implementing that at other airports in Vermont as well.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: One more question on the asphalt. Since the Rutland Airport takes in commercial taxi service, does their asphalt have to be any different than any other airport? Like grooved? That

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: actually happens to be grooved there. So I believe there's a further justification to provide like the FAA funded the grooving because it supports that regular commercial traffic and it can help those jets arrive. It can help improve the condition of the runway in a more predictable cadence. But the specifications for the asphalt itself is an FAA standard. But something like the grooving, the FAA said, Sure, we'll groove that. And the justification certainly in that case was because it was for that Part 139 outage. Okay,

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: thank thank you.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Representative White?

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: Thank you for this thorough presentation. I just have two questions. One, I'm looking at your total budget is $12,900,000 Maybe you want guess what it was for 2026?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Yeah, I have that number. Yikes. Or you can

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: send it to us.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: I will send that to you. I'm sorry, didn't write it.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I can just throw that in there. It's 13,400,000.0 last year. It's a 3.3% decrease for the share. Percentage. 3.3% drop from 13.4 to 12.98 to 13, basically.

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: And then how many people are on your aviation team?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Yeah, 20 full time staff right now.

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: Has that changed at all? Plus or minus?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: It has changed. Yeah, it has changed. That's a reduction. I'm sorry, I could get you the numbers for sure, but we have had positions that we don't have as many as we did a year ago.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: I'm

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: sure you're aware that there's been significant testimony from senior management at the agency transportation, particularly in the CFO presented and talked about how we're closing the gap in funding and other bigger pieces. But your aviation portion was identified as reductions in FY 'twenty six budget as part of the savings. Had a reduction in state match available for projects and grants from the aviation division 1,175,000.000. From the time frame of putting together this until then this sort of adjustment, would I be able to find in any of your presentation where this 1.1 affected some of your operations or what that may or may not have been part of your budget building? Yeah. So not directly in the presentation,

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: but certainly happy to discuss the difference between '27 to '26. So the CFO and the budget committee are responsible for determining a target that they provide to the senior managers of the agency. So in our case, we were given a target to meet, which that target was reduced from '27 to 2026. So how we kind of inform the changes that impacts on our budget, we'll take, first of all, our base operating costs, which is our personnel and administrative costs. We'll look at what's the base operational and facilities costs and we'll add that in. And then from there, we're able to prioritize projects from the capital plan or state funded projects that are ongoing, projects that are contracted or grants that have been awarded. And we'll put those as a priority. And then we'll look downstream and assess which of those projects can we fit in to meet that target that have safety as the first priority. And we start to look at projects that would be beneficial to the growth of aviation at the airports and maximizing their capability. And then we look at also sort of where that intersects with any public users, which is the communications they have made to us. And so we see where those intersect to add those projects. Sorry,

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: your time's up.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Point being, certainly the impacts from the reduced target are seen as us deferring the timeline of the completion of some of the projects that didn't fall into those already awarded safety projects, right? Like we have ongoing facilities needs, some operational impacts that still remain on the list, but it's the timeline to completion of those gets pushed out. So we've made the decision and again, on many of the state match and some of the state funded projects to just defer those. We can adjust how we award contracts, etcetera, to defer the timeline into the future so we can meet the needs of that current target.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: Thank you.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Thank you very much for coming in. I won't see

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: any other Dan, no, think questions did for right a great presentation. And he started off at like a 10,000 foot level. And he brought us on the questions we had right down to the ground level.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: That's great.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I didn't read any here about UFO landing strips or helipads or the future hovering, that's not part of the program for this year?

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Not at this time, no. We'll have to go to other parts of

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: it and find that out. Thank you very much. We're going to move on to Bridges. We've to go to Bridges. Bridges. I have never been to any town select board meeting anywhere where they didn't ask for more help on their town on the highways of Bridges. Yes, thank you. I suspect you hear about that on a regular basis as well, more help for town highways and town bridges.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: Hold up, Patricia. All right. John,

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: we'll get you talk more next time.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: Bear with me one moment while I share my screen.

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

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: Not seeing a moment to share. Oh, here we go. Okay. And then we will get going. Dryer cigarettes.

[Unknown Committee Member]: That's fine. Oh,

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: okay.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: No, I'm gonna do it this way. Got going online or going back door here? Yeah, I think we got it.

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: Our committee assistance.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: I can't seem good. Here. Yeah. Here we go.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: Yeah. Yeah. Presentation.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: Prefer a break so I can get this all set up for you guys.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: There we go. Perfect.

[Unknown Committee Member]: There we go.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: Could be good.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: It's good. Alright. Already. Hey, wait a minute. I recognize that. I drive by that.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: Matt showed a similar slide.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: If there was only that much traffic all the time, we wouldn't have half these problems. Exactly.

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: We don't

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: have these problems because we don't have these roads.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: You don't have an interstate? You didn't notice that 47% of the baby. All right. I'm getting a little punchy in the afternoon. So Jen, welcome. Let's dig into Bridge program budget,

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: if you're leading Absolutely. The For the record, Jen Lecroy, I'm the Structures Program Manager at Etrans. I'm here to talk about our 2027 Bridge Program budgets. Okay. We're going to talk about the overall budget, this big picture, and then we'll dive into the three programs, which are the Interstate Bridge Program, the State Highway Bridge Program, and the Town Highway Bridge Program. Then I want to talk a little bit about bridge maintenance because I think it's a critical aspect of what we do in the structures section. Across all the programs, we have 166,500,000 There's 160 projects funded in the program. 35 of them are emergency projects from the 'twenty three and 'twenty four flood events, and 92 projects are funded for construction, so we've been busy. The spending is up 5,300,000 from FY 2026. So we'll dive right into the interstate program. That's tab 5b in your white book. And in that program, there are $51,300,000. That's up 5,700,000.0 from FY '26. There are 33 projects funded for design and construction, 21 for construction, and nine third maintenance projects. That is included in those projects that are funded for construction. Just a little bit of history about where the interstate funding has been. And you can see we are pretty consistently around $50,000,000 Obviously, the ebbs and flows with large construction projects can move those numbers around a little bit, but we've been right at about $50,000,000 for the last four years. The Interstate Bridge Program, of course, funds bridges and large culverts on the interstate corridor, and it includes bridges that go over the interstate. And it is 90% federal funding and 10% state. And those state funds come out of the TIP funds. A few highlights about the program. We are currently rehabilitating the bridges in Royalton on I-eighty 9. I'm sure you've all heard of them past those. That will be spending $10,300,000 in FY '27. We have in the program the replacement of bridges for North and South on I-ninety 1 in Brattleboro over US 5 Exit 1 to spend 8,000,000 in FY '27. Have not the nine bridge maintenance projects that I mentioned. We'll spend $5,000,000 in FY '27. We have two deep culverts in Fairley that need replacing. And that project will spend $5,000,000 in FY '27. We are rehabilitating some large deep culverts in Linden as well. And we're gonna spend $3,600,000 in FY '27. We are replacing some decks on I-eighty 9 in Brookfield, and that will spend 3 and a half million dollars in FY '27. I think some probably my predecessor talked about Springfield project on I 91, which encompasses eight structures. We're spending $2,000,000 in FY '27. That is not moving into construction. That is just in design, but we will be moving into construction in '28 on those eight structures. And that is currently budgeted at $85,000,000 I'll talk a little bit about that moving forward. We have deck replacements at Exit 5 in Williamstown, spend $1,800,000 in FY27. Culvert rehabilitation in Rockingham to spend 1,100,000.0 and the culvert that needs to be rehabilitated in Montpelier, one under 89 is going to spend a few dollars. Moving on, this is just I

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: have a question about the Brattleboro Bridge. What is just grant funding, and why is that one contingent on the grant funding?

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: So we have been anticipating a notice of funding opportunity from USDOT for some time now for the Bridge Improvement Program and the NOFO hasn't come out. Our grant application is ready. And based on the fact that Vermont is the only state that hasn't been awarded a BIT project, the previous legislation in Washington indicated that every state would have the opportunity to get two. We are applying for two, but the NOFO has been delayed for three months at this point, and we're not sure when it's gonna come out. So we were hoping I'll talk about Springfield a little more in a minute in the 10 g reports, but we were hoping to apply for a grant that did qualify and meet all of the expectations of that bridge improvement program for both Brattleboro and Springfield to get additional federal money. And, again, because of what's going on in Washington, it's been delayed. Think, I don't know if he spoke with Costa yet. He's more familiar with what's going on. He anticipates the NOFOs to come out. So we're waiting for our opportunity to apply for those. And we really feel like we have a great chance of being successful just because we haven't been able to get.

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: Was that funding part of the Intersection Investment Judgement?

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: It was part of IIJA, correct.

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: Right, we'll hope for the best.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: Yes, absolutely. Representative McCoy? So, when the bridge that goes over the Connecticut River,

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: where are we, Franklin River Junction,

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: going over to 89 over I know New Hampshire owns the river, but I think we were responsible for a portion of that bridge. Is that completely completed, or is there still some work to be

[Representative Chris Keyser (Member)]: There will be be.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: Some minimal amount of work in FY27. I only presented here in the highlights what we're spending over $1,000,000 on, so likely it's less than It's

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: less than that. Yes, great, thank you. And

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: this slide just indicates where we are with our interstate bridge performance right now and where we anticipate being given sort of level funding into the future. And the state has issued a performance goal of 6%, so that's our target. We don't want to have a percent pour above 6%. And you can see that between 2020 up to 2024, we were down around 4%. We had a little jump in 2025 because there's new bridge inspection protocols that Federal Highway came forward with, it sort of caused us to adjust where we were rating bridges. So that's what that big spike is. But really, we're right around five to 7% at the current funding levels that we have, and we think we can stay there.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Can I ask you, Phil? Sure. In the inventory, this is interstate bridges. Correct. So, you have this goal of less than 6%. What's the total? 6% of 2,000, 1,000,

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: It's what are we way more complicated than that, because every bridge that gets rated, it has a square footage assigned to it. That square footage is then put into doing the math of so the percent core is actually the square footage of deck area of a bridge that is considered in poor condition, and it doesn't matter why. It doesn't have to be the deck that's in poor condition. It can be the foundations. It it can be the substructures. It can be a lot of different things, but it's based on the square footage, and I don't have those numbers for you exactly.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So it's not a matter of saying we know that we have these well bridges that are the ones that are causing the poor condition rating, or you know exactly which ones are That is correct,

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: I mean it's something We do have a number of bridges that are in poor condition on the interstate, and I'm happy to share that with this committee. Just don't know I

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: wanna make the public scared to death because

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: I think the secretary said this against a presentation that poor does not mean it's safe. So But

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: we can hear but it's I'm just trying to get a handle on how many 6% might be out of many thousands per square feet.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: So a follow-up. So one bridge could have a portion poor and some of the deck poor and the rest of it good? Or once a bridge has some square footage that's bad, or it bridge is good, is poor or good, or is it half and half based on this?

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: Right, so the way the rating system works is if one part of the bridge, of the metrics that we look at is four, the entire bridge is rated as four, regardless.

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: Jennifer Fitch, for the record, agency of transportation. So the reason why we do square footage is because it normalizes the data. So we know we have a lot of bridges on the town system, but those bridges have a small deck area compared to the large deck areas that you see on interstates. So we do the square footage so that we can normalize the data and compare apples to apples. Because if you were just gonna say we have x amount of town bridges and x amount of interstate bridges, that's not really telling you the story.

[Jennifer Fitch (Agency of Transportation)]: If that's helpful.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I can see why you would do that. I was looking at it from the perspective of you're coming up from, in effect, it looks like we've kind had this strategy of coming up from 'ninety one because that was the oldest build and we're way up 'ninety one and we're coming up 'eighty nine is sort of what I've gathered over the last number of years. We may have skipped up to a couple that are a little bit faster in need than some of the others, and I don't know, especially since they're on their interstate, there's, I guess, less of them, way less than there are of

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: the town highway. Right, but

[Jennifer Fitch (Agency of Transportation)]: they're much larger in-depth area. And so we know both the number of bridges and what number are poor, and we also know percentage poor by ten years. So we have both, both instances.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: So with that, I'll dive into the 10 gs reports. These are new projects that have been programmed after the FY '26 program was released. I won't walk through them all. If you have specific questions, Feel free, I'll just leave the slide up there for few

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: minutes.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: An interstate bridge isn't just you driving on the interstate. It's a bridge that crosses over the top of it. That's correct. That Colchester about

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: that much per se. Right? The Colchester Bridge over Blakley Road over I-eighty 9 is an example of that.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: That's for an interstate exchange there while you're at the Peninsula.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: Moving on, this next report compiles projects that have increased by more than 8,000,000 or by more than 75% compared to the twenty sixth estimate. So you'll see three bridge maintenance projects on here. Bridge maintenance, they're relatively small projects. And oftentimes when you get into maintaining a bridge, you're gonna find things that you need to fix while you're there. And so it will be a common thing for bridge maintenance projects to probably pop up on this list. The other project on this list that I wanna discuss is the Springfield project. It's going to be one of the largest projects the agency has ever done in a single contract. And we have been working hard at design and based on obviously we have inflation issues and what we've seen from the design team, we have increased that approximately $9,000,000 from what was proposed in FY twenty six.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: It's bigger than ones that are already done down there, for example.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: Is this in the Springfield area on I-ninety 1, and there's eight bridges in this Springfield area on I-ninety 1. Are they as high as the ones when you get closer to Brattleboro, and they're just so high up in the up top, or are they just, like, there a lot of

[Unknown Committee Member]: wetland or river? What's going on there?

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: They have eight bridges.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Seems like a lot.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: Yeah, I mean, there's obviously the bridges at the interchange. And then, actually, of the eight bridges, two of those we're disinvesting in. We're going to relocate a rail trail onto Route 5 put a path that follows the roadway. And so those won't be in the system anymore. They won't be in a state asset, but we will maintain them. And those are in poor condition. And then there's two other bridges that cross waterways that obviously you need a bridge when you're crossing the river.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: What river are we crossing? That's a great question. Not the Connecticut.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: New Hampshire. Right.

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: Yeah, I was just gonna say that some of these bridges might be bridges that go over the island, is that right?

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: So the only one is at the one at the interchange goes over Route 5, And we are reconfiguring, permanently reconfiguring the interchange in Springfield, similar to what we did in Colchester as part of the project. And how far out is

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: that date? '27, '28,

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: We nine, plan on starting construction in '28, but it will span four fiscal years to complete the project.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Well, they got used to that from that other huge bridge project.

[Unknown Committee Member]: We're good, I think.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: Great news. We don't have any projects that have increased by more than $10,000,000 over the preliminary plant phase. And completed projects on the Interstate Route 2 over I-eighty 9 and machine. No longer funded for construction. And just some examples of the work we've been doing. You can see that the northbound bridge in Royalton is now open to traffic. It looked pretty bad before we got to it. And then I guess that's our own highlight here. Oh yeah, Fairly. That's a deck replacement and Fairly in the top part of the picture. Do the State Highway Bridge Building, if there's no more questions on the interstate. Insured. Mean, iconic structure, obviously. It's a beautiful thing. I just wanted to give a brief update about where we were. We are going to resume construction in the spring. We expect to have both lanes of traffic open by August and the sidewalks, hopefully sooner. We've given you a conservative estimate right now because, again, construction work, weather, there's always contingencies out there, but we definitely anticipate having it open for fall foliage season completely. And some of the features, I mean, to widen a structure that is as old as that one is a pretty impressive engineering feat. And the sidewalks have gone from three and a half feet wide to six feet wide there. You can see the safety rail in the photo. A great safety improvement for that structure for obvious reasons. Remember?

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: Yeah, so this is a whole new branch.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: It's a whole new deck.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: A whole new deck. It's super

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: We did a lot of work to the structural steel underneath. You can see the arch there. And so, lot of work was required because there was significant damage. And part of some of the delays in construction had to do with the amazing amount of additional work that we ran into when we got into rehabbing the structure.

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: To the non American committee when we took a field trip down there before the safety fence was up, and there was a lot of advocacy.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: In 2016, I was

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: just looking at my pictures.

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: There's a lot of advocacy around getting that safety fence up, and finally it happened. So are you just going be able to reuse that?

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: Reuse it.

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: Are you going be able to reuse that safety fence? It's permanent. Oh, it's permanent. So the bridge

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: It's permanent part of the project.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: Widen Yeah,

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: we've already widened. This side that you're seeing here, this will face construction, obviously, to maintain traffic over the bridge. So that's what the other side of the bridge will look like when construction is

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: complete. I've traveled this quite a bit. And I know they do a great job with the lighting, the traffic signals, I think it worked pretty well during the summer, too. The safety rail? How high is that? I just think of people backing up to take pictures and

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: just, wow. Oh no, it's over eight feet tall.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: No, this one went to the what? Oh,

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: the traffic rail.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: The traffic rail. Not the safety one, think.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: It's curved. So you can see it's up on a curb and it's three foot six. I

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: was just wondering. No, I think that rail, the curvatures because of the safety issues with that bridge. All that we learned in constructing that bridge, reconstructing that bridge does us no good because it's

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: the only one of its kind in the entire system. That is correct. There's no other bridge of that significance in the whole.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Point something. When was the original bridge put in that arch? Do you know? Maybe Timmies. It was probably gonna be 2020, yeah, 2020. No, was thinking when the original My

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: understanding was bridge is because again, we maintained a lot of that structure at January old.

[Representative Chris Keyser (Member)]: It was a highway bridge. It was railroad

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: bridge originally,

[Unknown Committee Member]: correct. So those arched pieces of steel, didn't merge any new ones in there or nothing. They just kinda went with what was there and then cantilevered

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: further out to put the sidewalks in. We we added structural components that connect to the main structure of the arch to transmit the forces to the substructures. But yeah, we had to add significant amount of steel under the bridge to accommodate that widening. There you go, you

[Unknown Committee Member]: must have the deck, underneath the deck. Underneath the deck, right. And that's all

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: sitting on the old structure? Yes it is.

[Unknown AOT Official]: Thank you.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: We're gonna run out of time. Sorry, hit my back. Okay. I appreciate you starting that one.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: $85,000,000 it's up $7,100,000 from FY '26. There are 90 projects funded for construction or sorry, 90 projects funded total, 55 for construction, 29 of those are from the emergency response of the '23 and '24 flooding. Eight of those construction are bridge maintenance projects. And again, 29 permanent replacement bridge projects too because of the flooding. You can see the funding in the state highway bridge program has ramped up a little bit, but in reality, that's because of the emergencies. Otherwise, we're then hovering around the $60.55, 60,000,000. And how that funding is split, you can see here almost 80% of it is federally funded. Small local share in there, and that's to accommodate utility moves that aren't eligible if they're on one of our structures or something, they have to pay for those costs. The interdepartment you see there is basically a transfer of the state funds for flood relief, the ER projects. 2,900,000.0 in the T Fund and 6,100,000.0 TID. Listed some highlights there. I'd be happy to take any questions. I would just say that all of the bridges that were proposed under the governor's plan for funding are in the state highway bridge program. And the additional money would go there. It's the bridges in Sunderland and then the bottom five projects. And then this is our performance on the state highway system. Really good and really good compared to our neighbors. And obviously, you can see a jump in 'thirty '4 and 'thirty five with basically assuming level funding. So, we'll keep an eye on that as we move forward, but we feel like we're in very good shape on the state highway system as far as bridges are concerned. Moving on to the 10 gs reports. We've added some new projects. The two Rochester projects were discovered during the inspection of of the culverts on Vermont 73, and they are funded technically under the emergent needs line item. And it's a relatively new find.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Think there's enough for me

[Unknown Committee Member]: to go home tonight, right?

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: Absolutely. We're keeping an eye on it.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Alright, I'll take a gander at them and I'll go real fast.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: Projects that have increased by more than 8,000,000 or by more than 75% compared to the FY twenty six estimate. Again, the two BM projects, that's gonna be, I hate to say standard, but somewhat common for those just because of the additional work that you find when you're out there. And then the culvert in Bridgewater was originally programmed as a rehabilitation, but a recent inspection indicated that we may need to do more with that. So we're going to completely replace it, and that's why there's an increase there. This report is projects that have increased by more than $10,000,000 or by more than a 100% compared to the preliminary engineering phase. These were all listed last year, so they're still spending money in '27, so that's why I didn't list. But the reality is these were all on design during significant inflation time, and they're large projects, so the costs really increased on those. And this report is projects that were funded for construction and are no longer funded for construction. Bridge 237 in Lowell is complete and Bridge 38 on US 5. Just some highlights, I think Searsburg was on one of these reports. You can see that we replaced a eight foot culvert with a fairly long bridge. There's a few reasons for that. It was a very deep structure, and getting down to those is costly. But we're also asked in this particular project by our partners in ANR to help them with some wildlife crossing, and this seemed like a good opportunity and a good place to do that, and so we accommodated them. This is just the cattle pass in Lowell, Bridge 25 on Vermont 11 before and after. And then you can see down below, that is what happened this past summer. The temporary bridge was installed in Reedsboro and Rutland 100, quite a massive temporary bridge effort to do that. And you can see the bridge down below it that is currently no longer there.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: What did temporary bridge cost?

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: Would have to get back to you, but more than that. Yes.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Many do we have in stock for the next major weather event?

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: We're doing okay. We're getting some back from towns and I think our inventory is, we're getting some inventory back. So Okay. Moving on to the town highway bridge program. It's tab 16 in your white book.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: $30,300,000

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: down seven and a half from FY '26. I'll talk a little bit about why. There's 37 projects funded in the program and 16 of those are funded for construction. Here is the history of the town highway bridge budget. And I just wanna point out that through IIJA, there was a a large amount of money, 200 plus million dollars dedicated to bridges. And what it did is it allowed no local or state share for off system qualifying bridges. And so, when we received that news at the agency, we said, okay, what do we have for projects that meet that criteria? Because we wanna take advantage of it. We think we did. And so you can see the town highway funding was significantly higher in '24, '25, and '26. It's starting to come back down to what we would consider a normal level. I mean, it it's it's more than, before 2023 or 2024, but or less than yeah. It's more than before 2024. So all that to say is $30,000,000 is right about where we wanna be in the Town Highway Bridge program, and that's where we are right now.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I'd like to interrupt for a second here.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: This

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: particular piece is something that this graph, something we really need to make sure that we understand in the committee about how this money, this came about, how these activities, and if need be digging into even more, which bridges it did result in. Because what's happening now is that the drop between twenty six and twenty seven as these funds have been spent, We're going back towards where we were before. And what it looks like to our constituents and to our town highway, then our select boards, it looks like we're retreating from a state investment in town highway bridges. And that is not entirely I don't know exactly the right terms I should use, but that's not really what is happening here. What happened is there was a huge opportunity, it was funded, and a lot of work was done. That money is running out. There are other factors involved. And think we as a community continue to dig into it. But when the Wild League Cities and Towns puts out in their weekly report that we're pulling back $7,000,000 from town highway bridges, I guess on the really simplest terms that's true. But this is what's really happening is that these bridges and this funding is running out from the feds. And we did kick in our state chair. And I could probably get it wrong, and you can help clarify it for anybody, Jim, that I don't get it right. But I really want to make sure members understand this because the VLCT really hit on this week's report that total proposed town highway programming is down by over $7,000,000 from fiscal 'twenty six. It's entirely in this program. And that isn't that the state went out and said, and maybe you could hit on this again, the state didn't go out and say we're going to cut $7,000,000 in town highway programs. We spent way more than we historically have and took advantage of this program. And I'm all for the VLCT's advocacy of solving our transportation funding problems. But we as a committee have not tried to see anything that would go backwards in town highway A. And this makes it look like we have. And I really am emphasizing this for the committee. Maybe everybody else already understands this.

[Evan Robinson (AOT Aviation Program Manager)]: Yeah, was a massive

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: federal incentive to do what we did, and that's why we did it. And we hope that the next transportation bill will allow similar funding. I mean, we're we would be more than happy to ramp this up again if that was the case.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And ranking member Pouech will take you through the next extra mile, and vice chair, I'll be back right after a quick meeting. We'll keep going on the bridges, and I appreciate the chance to highlight that particular issue. Thank you, Chair. I'll be right back.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: Any more questions on the panel?

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: I need

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: not to diminish what the chair said, but these dollars are never adjusted for inflation, right, across the years. Correct. That's an important piece to keep in mind.

[Representative Candice White (Member)]: And if I could just clarify that. So you were saying that the IJA funds started to kick in, or starting to say that in 2023? Well,

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: we had some work to do internally to get those projects that qualified for that off system money ready to go to construction. But yeah, that's when you really started to see the ramp up.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: And I think there were certain things that they had to be like, they were Class II bridges on Class II roads. There was, I think that missed That's the correct. Class you had to find bridges that were qualified on a Class II road, not on a Class I. There's specific framework

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: around that Specific to Class II, Class III town highways that weren't on an FAS road. Correct.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Would you like to clarify?

[Unknown AOT Official]: Yeah, it just, it was a very pointed pot of money that came from the federal government. The nice thing was it was 100% federal funds. So it didn't actually get into our state funds, which is great. But again, when that money dries up, we're not sure what the next authorization is going bring. If it doesn't bring that money, we're back to finding state funds to match the amount of money that we get for town highway bridges. So we are sort of heading back to what was historic levels.

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: And I mean it was a wonderful bucket of money because Houghtony's Bridge over the East Houghtony Gorge was 100% paid by this money, which would have liked. Because now we're in the next bridge. We have seven bridges and 10, so it's crazy. We're onto our next bridge then. But it was a godsend, really, to get back. And simply because it was within that brand, we could get that money.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: And I'll just add, even when towns get on the program and can get one of these bridges, the match from the town can be a significant amount. Okay,

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: thanks. Okay,

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: so how it's funded in the Town Highway Bridge program is a little more complex than the other programs. But essentially, the Town's shared changes based on the project type and laws put in place under Act 153 if they choose to close the road during construction. So, a full bridge replacement is funded locally at 10% and by the state at 10%. A full bridge replacement with a road closure is only funded at 5% for the town and 15% state. And then if it's a rehabilitation, that share is also reduced. So where we landed in 2027 is about $24,500,000 of federal funds, dollars 1,500,000.0 of local funds, $2,600,000 in TID funds, and then a small amount in the T Fund. Highlights from the program, Burlington, Winooski over the Winooski River is going to spend $5,600,000 in FY '27. We will just be starting construction maybe towards the end of FY '27. At least that's the current point. The replacement of Bridge 60 on Route 12 in Northfield will spend 4 and a half million in FY twenty seven. Rehabilitation of Truss Bridge 4 on Vermont 31 in Fultonay, 4 and a half million. Placement of Bridge 6 on Town Highway 3 in Walcott, 3100000.0. Placement of Bridge 62 on Town Highway 18 in Chester over the Williams River is gonna spend 2,600,000.0. Now both Walcott and the reason that the funding splits looked a little off and it wasn't a 10% local share is because those two projects in particular are funded with that 100% federal money. It's part of the IAJA. And then replacement of Bridge 6 on Vermont Route 9 in Bennington, spending a million dollars. We have a performance goal of no more than 12% poor on the town highway program. And you can see with existing funding, and this is not taking into account that special pot of money. This is more at traditional levels, the $25.30000000 range where we've been previously before that money kicked in. This is looking at the performance based on that. And you can see we're still maintaining well below our targets in the out years. Is this a federal I assume that the state highway or the interstate, these ratings come from the federal government, saying here are

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: the criteria. Is this criteria from the federal government too? This is the state? I mean, federal I mean,

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: the same rules apply to our obligations to do everything that Federal Highway asks to do before we put out a project, get NEPA, get all our permits in place, have right of way clearance, have utility clearance, all that stuff. It all still applies. But they don't have performance goals for states on town highway systems. They only have performance goals for states on the national highway system. So this is our own criteria. That's correct. Okay, thanks. The 10 gs reports. We have some new projects. You can see them there. Two of those are really to support the Burlington Winooski project. We have some traffic issues we need to deal with before detouring traffic from that bridge. Two projects were programmed to do that. And then the ER projects that are on federal aid routes are in the program. However, they are managed by Joel's group and municipal assistance, not by the structures section. We don't have any projects that increased by more than 8,000,000 or 75% compared to FY '26. We do have projects that increased by more than a 100% compared to the preliminary plan phase. All of these projects were in design during the height of the peak inflation, and that's some of the reason for this. Honestly, they're all in the South. And I think the reason for that is these are relatively large projects, and the large contractors in Vermont are mostly in the North, and so we tend to get better bid prices there, to be quite frank with you. And then projects that were funded for construction, but are complete: Ruttleboro Hinsdale, Grafton and Hartford. Just some pictures of some of the work we've done on town highways. This is two bridges that we replaced on Nebraska Valley Road in Stowe. A deck replacement and some drainage improvements to structure bridge one in Woodstock on FAS 166. And then the picture down below is Stowe Street in Waterbury.

[Representative Chris Keyser (Member)]: So I'm assuming that all these new structures that we're putting up had hydrological studies based on new inputs.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: So, the hydraulics group is managed by me in the structures program, and we do intense hydraulic modeling for every bridge replacement and even, honestly, rehabilitation that we do to see if there's something we need to do related to scour, like undermining of a bridge abutment or something like that. So, yeah, we have a hydraulics

[Representative Chris Keyser (Member)]: My second question is, how many bridges do we have left from 1927? Really would like to know

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: that. We can get that.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Absolutely. We will

[Representative Chris Keyser (Member)]: get it for you.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: That's right.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: And then I just want to touch on what we're doing in bridge maintenance, because it again, it's very critical to extend the service life of our bridges. And if we didn't do this type of work, we would have a lot more bridges going into that four category. And so you can see these are in each program, but we're spending about $5,000,000 on interstate bridge maintenance and $7,500,000 on state bridge maintenance in FY twenty seven. And there's a list of all the projects that we're doing. I won't go through that, but just to highlight some of the work that is done with this money. You can see in Cabot there where we installed some weirs downstream and really improved the hydraulic characteristics of that structure. You can see how terrible that exterior fascia part of the bridge near the bridge rail looks. All the concrete's deteriorated, so we may go in and replace the fascia on a structure. I hate to say that that photo up in the top left is

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: Yeah. It's a previous photo. What was that little red thing? It looked like it's on something. A generator. A generator? Yeah. For people run spools and stuff.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: For what? So people can run their equipment

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: Oh, okay. While the bridge is being built. Right. Okay.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: And then you can see, this is bridge maintenance work that we did in Norwich on the interstate. Yeah, that looks pretty scary on the top left, we're keeping an eye on all of this stuff, we went in and fixed that. And then we replaced a failed joint as well. And with that, that's all I have for you.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Are there any more questions or items we had questions for? How many nineteen twenty seven bridges are there? Why count the Richmond one that's expanded and redone?

[Representative Chris Keyser (Member)]: The ones that have sidewalks

[Representative Kate Lalley (Member)]: on.

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: We have all of that, and we can get you any information you want.

[Representative Chris Keyser (Member)]: I bet you can't. Thank

[Jen LeCroy (Structures Program Manager, VTrans)]: you I very

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: think we're all set.