Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: You're live.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: This is Senate Transportation. We are Thursday, March 19. We are doing pavement and roadway this morning. And Matthew, introduce yourself, Matthew. Sure. I'm going to swap my screen while I do that.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Yeah,

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: so for the record, my name is Matt Rigachic. I'm the Highway Safety and Design Program Manager. And as the chair said, I am here to talk about three programs. It will be the paving program, the roadway program, and the traffic and safety program. So just a quick overview of what each of these does is on the screen behind me here. Paving program is anything ranging from crack seal projects up to the full depth reclamation jobs. Roadway program is a, it's pretty wide range of the slopes that we address, so it can be anything from slope and ledge stabilization, culvert replacements or rehabilitation, and then this goes up to even major reconstruction, linear reconstruction projects like you would see out on Route 7, for example. And then finally, we'll get into traffic and safety, which is typically intersection focused, whether that's a signal replacement type project or a reconstruction of an intersection to a different type of control. They also run the corridor sign replacements and annual pavement markings. Diving right in, we will start with the paving program. This will be tab 5A in your budget books. This year we have an appropriation of $148,200,000 which is an increase compared to last year of about $45,000,000 In this program and what you'll see similar to the other programs is this funding will cover preliminary engineering or the design activities. Typically, in the paving program, it's very minor, but there are right of way acquisitions that can happen. And then, of course, the bulk is for the construction activities. For fiscal twenty seven, we're showing construction funds on 36 paving projects in '27, and then there's an additional 27 projects that have funds shown for PE and, like I said, very minor amount of right away. I think there's maybe one or two. We had 11 projects that were planned for advertisement between September and February, so kind of in that prime advertisement time frame. On the bottom of this slide, you can see a tabulated view of where the funding is going based on the classification of the roadway, and I have a couple of slides that show this in a couple different ways. On this particular one, what we see is for class one town highways, we have about 8 and a half million dollars dedicated out of the fiscal twenty seven program. For the state system non NHS, so your Vermont Fifteens, Vermont 108, Route 100, you have about $40,000,000 The national highway system of your state system, so non interstate, we have $5,000,000. And then on the interstate, we're showing just about $7,000,000. So translated to miles paved, we're shooting at about one fifty two this year.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: For calendar year '26. For calendar year '26.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And do

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: you have the total for FY '26?

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: So it's a 148 or 27. Do happen

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: to have 26 handy?

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: 26 was, I believe, one three. One zero three. I think

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: that was one. We've asked everyone that came in. It was just, I think, the third time we've been in France that we would lay up the sheets to say 26 so we can see in this. This is the third time we've asked.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Okay. Thank you. So 108,

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: I was thinking? It's 103. It's actually so the the deep increase is on is on the second bullet. So this year, it's one forty eight minus the 45. We're we're at

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: one zero three last year, and that translated to about a 102 miles planned. So can you give us a breakdown? How many of the 152 miles is interstate versus the rest of the system? Yes. I can. Can I flip through two slides to show you that data? Is that alright? I It would be nice right up front if we had it,

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: but I'm Yep. We do have it. So it it's on this sheet. Yep. So just very briefly, this is just a different way of looking at the same numbers. It's just percentages of the program shown in a pie chart. But to answer your question, what we have shown on this view behind me is a breakdown of miles and money per classification of roadway. So for the interstate, we have planned in twenty twenty six ninety two miles with that roughly $70,000,000. On the state system, so this is inclusive of both the NHS and non NHS state routes, we have, 55.8 miles at roughly $45,000,000, And then the class one system in 2026, we're showing four just over four miles and about 8 and a

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: half million dollars. So what would be helpful is if I've got out of the 150 odd miles that we're doing, we're doing 90 odd miles on the interstate. How many miles of interstate do we have versus how many miles on the state system so we can make a comparison of what we're doing. What I suspect is this is heavily weighted towards the interstate.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: So just to clarify what the data is that you were looking for, you're looking for number that we're going to pay over the total.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: What percentage of the interstate are we paving this year? What percentage of the state system are we paving this year?

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: That wasn't your, oh, your pie graph was dollars, not miles. Correct.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: Correct. And that was only based on the program and the breakdown within the program. Yep, I can follow-up with that.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: But it would be these numbers, the percentage of the numbers?

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: So I believe the question is how many miles are we paving on the interstate versus what's the total linear mileage of the interstate, but the percentage that we're covering in this paving this year.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I'm I'm 55 miles on the state system, I suspect, is not very much. Right.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: I see what you it's a Houlik line, right?

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: We typically measure by centerline mile on the so when we do, it's a little bit it's a little weird, right? So on the state system or non NHS or NHS, non NHS state system, it's centerline miles. When we get onto the interstate, typically we're looking at a barrel. So it would be northbound barrel, southbound barrel. So some of these numbers, you know, the 92 miles that are shown in the interstate would be inclusive of either the project is only on one barrel or if it's on both northbound southbound, it would be barrel one mileage and barrel two mileage rather than median mileage.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Right. Gotcha. It makes sense.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah. I

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: don't know. That this is the first time I've heard that. What what interstate did you show? Did you show

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: She showed the the the the pike crossing at the Yes. I'll

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: pop it back up. Need to add an instruction.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: I use that all the time. It's the first it's the first mistake, I use it like every other week usually. Not now in the winter, but

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: that's great.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: So I'm gonna catch back up to slides here. So again, the pie chart was just the comparison of the total dedicated to the particular classification of roadway in this program. So the money dedicated to that versus the 148,000,000 in the total program. And I'll follow-up with the with the other requested data. Talking a little bit more about this table, this is looking back at the previous three years, so '23, '24, and '25. I do wanna point out that the mileages and the costs that are assumed in this table are total projects in that given year. So in many cases, have projects that well, not many. In in some of the cases, we have projects that start in one year, but then there's work that takes place in the following year. For this table and and for the data that we pulled for this one, it just says this project started in '23. We took that full construction cost and that full mileage and took credit only in that year. We didn't take any any carryover miles. For the assumed data for '26 paving, we did try to use a a factor to figure out what maybe carried over into the next year versus what we were bringing in. And with that, we're gonna jump into the 10 gs reports on the paving program. So up first is 10 g one. These are the new projects that were added to the program after the twenty sixth program was out. You'll see most of these have the designation of DLEV or DLEV. These are district leveling projects. So these are the roads that are in in tough, maintainable shape. We put out a, a thinner treatment to make them, you know, to make them safer, make them smoother, and make them easier to maintain. These are state funded projects. They do tend to come into the program a little bit later, and that's why they show up on this report. There are two that are not DLEV projects. One is the Morristown Windex PRINT two, and the other one would be Rockingham N H 2628 PRINT two. These are both, very short paving projects that we're using to get good sensor data on weigh in motion sites. So the sensors are in the roadway. It takes a smooth road to make sure that we can actually weigh what's going across. If you think about a truck bouncing

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Yeah.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: Depending on where you're bouncing in that roadway, you may have a motorcycle or you may have a truck that's that's way overweight depending on, you know, what's driving through and where they're at in balance. So those are the other two.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Can I ask you

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: a question? Yeah. On

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: the Woodbury, is that was that the one part of the 14 that was done last year or this is more paving that will be done this year? And I guess my point doesn't matter what the answer to that is. Assume I know there was some paving done last year, but the striping has never been done. And so I keep getting complaints about whether they're gonna put the stripes on, but I think it was just it was done at the end of the year and then winter hits, so you basically can't stripe again until you get good weather.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: It's possible that that's the case. This, diving back in, and I can follow-up if you want to know if this is for the stretch that was paved last year. My guess is it probably was later in the season last year.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Yeah, they did some paving and then just there's like a few miles there that they got paved that don't have. Maybe they just did the center stripe or something. Okay.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: Yeah. I don't know. Yep.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: You can't see that that side striped and when you get there. Yeah. People give their headlights shined in their eyes, then they try

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: to find that side and it's not there. They feel like it's safe. Jeremy has.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Yeah. So Jeremy, you've here. Yeah. Where where they're concerned, the DLEVs are generally administered through the disparate, your

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: main course.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: I did have along that concern, but Jeremy said he'd take care of it. I'll Right. Right now is another great time to do that, but Because you need a couple of days, because they got the

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: people with very, know, like, was nice today, why didn't they do it?

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Yeah, there's still moisture within the pavement, so it does take a little bit to dry out the pavement and then how they ambient temperatures to apply it. So it is certainly on maintenance is very dark, but it's right. Okay.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: We're gonna go through the individual projects and then I'm gonna ask you a bunch of questions and you're gonna be back. Okay. Alright. So I I just pulled up the number of miles and I might be wrong, but there is pretty close to 2,400 miles of state highways and we're doing 55 miles. And in the interstate, there's three twenty miles and we're doing 92. And what I'm gonna want from you each is some estimation how many miles should we be doing to keep up on the state highway system? Because 55 miles would seem to me we're gonna fall completely behind. Okay. I appreciate the state system and I appreciate that we have a standard to keep up, but I'm gonna say this personally, and I usually wouldn't do this to pollinate how we're doing in the state system.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Sort of follow-up to the cherry point, as AOT said that we were trying to do 200 miles, like to keep the conditions about the same 200 miles. Have you heard that figure before? Have you used it? So

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: we're well aware paving industry sort of notion and we don't necessarily disagree with a lot of good kind of, we have 3,300 miles or on average, say ten years curve, that's about 300 miles per year. So that's both interstate and state. Correct. The logic applies whether it be the 2,800 or 2,900 state system. So again, simple logic would be 190 miles would sort of fit in that ten year window. I would just add that a large portion of the interstate was added with the $10,000,000 purchase and use clawback, and that was largely predicated on just those projects being ready. So I don't want to say it was not a conscious decision, but when that money became available, that was the option. So it wasn't necessarily a preconceived target that we were trying to hit.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, I would say it becomes frightening when I look at your book and you're at 146,000,000 or 48,000,000 in '27, and you show projects next year at 72,000,000. And when I hear the state system that we're only doing 55 miles and I may be wrong, but I get 2,400 off from your website, doing a little subtraction. That's not that's a holiday. Scary. Sorry. I can't see it any other way. Go ahead.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I guess I'm also surprised by the information, and I'm wondering if there's a reason behind it. Is there a different funding? Maybe you said this at the beginning, but do you get a different amount of money depending on from the feds? So it like, is that a reason why? Or maybe you could illustrate why. Is that a policy decision that we can change or is that like a financial decision the AOT is making?

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: So I can address that. So there is a different funding split. I will say again, this year's program was, I'll just say phone introduction it was, largely because those projects were ready given the funding availability. I'll also say from a policy decision, we have federal performance targets that apply to the interstate and NHS that don't apply anywhere else. And so I've presented this committee before about the very poor condition, right, trying not to exceed 25. Federal Highway requires us to keep very poor condition of interstate and NHS below 5%.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: So there's two

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: You sort can't funded.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Like if we don't do that, we lose all of the we or it changes the formula, whatever.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: So so what what would happen in practice is, let's just say we we wanna decrease everything the same, and our very poor on the interstate instance got to 10%. What Federal Highway would do is they'd step in and dictate to us that we stop spending money on the state system to reallocate those resources to the interstate system until we met the

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: How mad? No. So, thank you, sir. Would you just give us again what's the rate at the interstate and what's the mandatory route in the state system?

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Sure. The interstate is ninetyten and the state system is 81317.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: 8200380017. The first I've heard

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: that, break

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: it down, yeah.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Well, it is, but there's some modifiers that we can take advantage of to get it to 83717.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, we don't get it. Yeah.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Let's keep going.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: On the screen is the second of the 10 g reports. Love showing this one. I took off my picture of confetti and streamers. So this is the first of the expanded project reports. So this would be anything in comparison to last year that's increased by $5,000,000 or 75% or more, which we have none. So great great news on this one. Would you attribute that to

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: because in the last five to six years, we would have had a check, it would have. Is that because the inflation is down?

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: I wouldn't say down, but I think that we're, I think our estimating data is starting to catch up a little bit, and the projects that we're looking back on to get good estimated data are close enough, and we've kind of hit a level spot where we're getting good, close estimates.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, we've heard inflation over there since 2021, the last five years, has approached 60 percent across all of transportation. Is that inflation not quite the same in paving?

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: Year over year, I don't know what the number is. I know that we did see, anecdotally, know that we saw prices increase along with the other programs as well. Because these tend to be faster between, you know, faster development timeframe, we have estimates that are on the books for a very short amount of time. So we're able to keep up with current estimates at normal plan intervals. So, the year over year comparison, we have none. I'll flip to this one because it seems to be a good segue. When we address the preliminary plans estimate versus the current estimate, depending on how long our audit's been in the books or when preliminary plans were developed, we do see some of that price increase due to inflation. So sort of that it's leveling off, sort of that the year over year is just staying a little bit closer between last year and this year, stayed a little bit closer.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: What happened with killing case coverage?

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: Sure. So this is the 10G3. So this is the comparison of preliminary plans versus the current estimate. And that's an increase of $10,000,000 or more than 100% compared to that preliminary plan estimate. So Killington Stockbridge is a project that was programmed just after Irene. It did originally have the ER designation because it was a post Irene project. The preliminary plan estimate was back in 2014. And from there, there were some scope changes along the way that that increased the scope. So a small box culvert was added in. There were some slop repairs that were added in. There was a little bit of right of way implications with that. The project kind of expanded and then started to come back you know, come back down in size. So the current estimate in this particular project is almost $31,000,000 Again, this is a comparison from 13.2 in 2014 with some scope expansions. So inflation is taking a toll on this one for sure. Some of it was widening on the project. The thing to note with this particular project is we're going through and reviewing the treatment to make sure that we are still dialed in on what we want to do on this road, given the original treatment was from 2014, 2012. So we're taking a closer look at that, and we do expect that the new treatment is gonna reduce costs. We just don't have the right number yet. We're anticipating about a $5,000,000 reduction.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And is the 13 versus the 31 on this, either this inflation adjusted or this bill or these actual dollar, but

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: These would be current dollars. So the 31 would be current dollars and the 13.2 would have been current dollars in 2014 with some amount of contingency in there.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Going forward, just to say to you, it's hard to judge when you don't put you know, when I'm not comparing apples to apples. So to use adjusted numbers? No. It would be easier to see if it was constant dollars adjusted for inflation. Okay.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: Alright. Moving to ten g four, these are the projects that will be coming off from the books or the ones that are completed. For this year, we have two f pave type projects. So these are mill and fills, about an inch and a half mill and fill. One was Chelsea, Washington on 01/10. The other was Essex Fairfax on 01/28. And we have the Marshfield Danville US 2 project, which was a a mix of fixes along US 2. All three of these were completed, and you will not see them in the

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: book going forward. The agency did a I could the Essex, Fairfax on 01/28 through Westman, you did a really good job.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: It must be that they're dying, that's what you're but this is so weird that you it's like, tell us what coloring projects are dying.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: It's it's stated a little bit oddly, yes. But basically, it's it's any project that showed construction funding in '26 that doesn't have construction funding in '27. So it's meant to highlight the projects that you won't see going forward. Which would

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: be Usually it's because they're done. Yes.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: And if you stop doing it at that point, like I don't know why not could you take

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: it off? Is that what the house

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: is wearing back? Because I think we tried to get rid

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: of this. House is like, no. We have to have it. In

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: the projects that I'm

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: I'm looking at the former house transportation. They're all surrounded by former house.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Just watch out, have a secret handshake.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: I think in all the projects that I'm going be showing in the presentation today, they're all completed.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: I

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: may correct myself later, but I believe that they're all just completed. They've gone through the construction phase and we're done. The

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: only time a project would show up here is A, if we absolutely cancel the project, which I think we talked about earlier and we don't really know the mechanism to get legislative approval for that, will be a discussion at some point. If we are basically hitting pause and not expending any money on that project in the next fiscal year. Typically, fact that the Fed not to do that could show some token amount, I think generally just projects don't show up here, and so they remain active in the federal financing system. That being said, if we have some projects that are going to be progress until 2035, you may see that moving forward.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: Alright, with that, we will step into the roadway program budget, so this will be tab five b in your white book. This year, we have an appropriation of nearly $54,000,000, which is a decrease from last year of about $13,700,000. Again, this does fund the engineering and design phase, right of way acquisition, and then, of course, the construction phase. The funding in '27 shows up in the construction item for 47 different projects in the roadway budget, and then there are an additional 32 projects that will receive some funding for that right of way acquisition or the the PE phase of the preliminary engineering phase. Total program has 135 projects. Down at the bottom in the tabulated view, you can see the number of projects based on a classifications that that I used to try to break them out with a mountain that had construction funding in 2027. So we have 26 standard roadway reconstruction type projects. Five of those have construction funding in 2027. 30 total small culvert rehabilitations, 10 of which have construction 27 funding. There are 12 ledge and slope stabilization projects with two in 27. 43 emergency repair projects, 29 of which have funding in '27. And then 24 what I deem miscellaneous projects with one with construction funding. So these are stormwater retrofit type projects. Didn't really fit the bin of of the other ones. They got the the catch all of miscellaneous.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Moving

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: on to the 10 g reports in Roadway. 10 g one are the the new projects I think. Are you

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: going project by project for this one as well? Or or are you can we

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: ask about specific projects?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: You should ask about your specific Billings

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Park Trail? Is that a road, or is that

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: we're paving it's in Woodstock. Is are we paving something on the the National Parks?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: You said the roadway?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. It's the it's all the way in W if you're

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: Okay.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Federal Lands. Oh, is

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: that you think so?

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Yeah. It's Federal Lands. It's a flat.

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: It's a Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: What's a flat?

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: For the record, it's Joel Garfield, Municipal Assistance. It's a federal lands access program grant. So it's direct federal grant that well, it's not direct. It goes through Mississippi State, but it's with the town of Woodstock for it's actually just trail work in the park itself. So there's no

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: paving. Okay.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Would Little

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: surprises here that's showing up in the roadway program.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. It's for 17,000, so I'm not does it sound Yeah.

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: 100% pedal funds.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Great. Well, thank you.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: It's gonna be

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: a force of arts.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I also agree that Wyatt's here. That's what made me

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: okay.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Let me back up. Sure. So in the number and this is all what we're doing this year in the list. How would I translate that from your book to finding the 43 emergency repairs? From the book to the 43.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: So I've got

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: my book out. Project Time Inspection. Yeah. How would I, in each of these, where would I go to find?

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: So I think it's gonna be a bit of a manual data mining.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: So the ER projects, emergency relief projects will have an ER in the project Yeah, name or so

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: it's in sub year.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: If you go to the actual

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: That's number

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: of projects in this month.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: It's-

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Well, this is only for construction in the next three years. Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: If you go to- But that's what your 29 of those have construction. Okay.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Yep. And then, like the COLORD certificate, they have a CULB designation. Well, I'm trying

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: to figure out if I've got an emergency repair project and I've only got, and it's an emergency, and I'm only doing 29, 14 are that I don't want to drive?

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: So the emergency repair isn't necessarily mean we have an active emergency, that just means it's funded through the emergency relief program on So Capitol there could be, in fact, probably are projects from the 'twenty three event were temporarily stabilized and a permanent solution is being funded through

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: the emergency relief program. That's helpful because when I hear this, I get

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Yes, there are no ticking time bombs out there.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: That's what I was asking. Yep. Thank you. Go ahead. Okay.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: So within the 10 gs-one report, so these are the new projects, and we'll talk a little bit about that naming convention, because a couple of those examples actually show up on the sheet. So we have two ER projects that are on this list. These are permanent repairs to sites that were damaged in both the '23 or in a '23 event and a '24 event. So the the flag here, if you're looking to know which ones are ER versus which ones are are other projects, is that ER designation, and then the P gives you the notion that it's a permanent repair. Does not mean that nothing was done at the time of the event, that may have been a temporary stabilization, and then there's a permanent repair that comes afterwards. So with Berrytown ERP 23, repair of a 23 event in the permanent version of it. Plainfield ERP 24 is a repair due to a '24 event in the permanent version of that repair.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay, so if I was looking at my project, like the Woodstock one, the thing that says next to it flat, if I look above like Williamstown is ER P23, so I would know that that's an emergency repair.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: That is a permanent emergency repair due to a XXIII event.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: It would be great if there was

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: like a glossary of what each of those codes meant that we could have at the front of the book or something. I don't know. Because that, I have looked at this book in some form for eight eight years, and I have never understood death.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And that is a really quick way to know that.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: It's so obvious. What

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: happened? Yeah.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Do you know about the? Like, it's odd

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: there was a million dollars in there,

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: but the but

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: the wonder what this is doing because the project, they either have to read throughout the road or they have to rebuild several miles of road that are now washed away. Yep. It would be more than a million dollars.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: That is more principally design and doing basically Okay. Evaluation. Right? So the town preference always pays for relocation. They do have you go through a deeper process to evaluate that alternative. Well, wouldn't it be everybody's preference to relocate? You still have to go through the

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: NEPA Right, but the way you said it, it seemed like the state might disagree.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: No, no, you gotta look at the total impacts and the costs and all of that. I think it's just, you gotta go.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: The billing dollars is still, we're still trying to figure

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: out what the exact numbers.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: So we'll do a little more discussion on the naming convention here. So as Jeremy had alluded to before, there are culvert projects, C U L V, with some parentheses next to them. There are two of them that show up on the new projects. These are culvert replacements or rehabilitations. They can range anywhere from a single culvert that's still designated as a small culvert, but maybe 48 inches that's gonna upsize to a large box. They can also encapsulate some multiple culvert replacements, drainage type culverts. So two of them are on this list, one of which is the Moortown project. That is an emergent needs. There was a sinkhole that formed, and we are responding to that. And then Jamaica Colp 172 is a project that was added due to the condition of the pipe non emergent need, but we do see the condition is, of course, declining as you would expect, and we're designing a project to address that.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: It's the first thing I'm gonna stow in the parking lot in the Notch itself.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: This is the so the STOW ST project is the state funded portion of the Notch Road work, which is storm water and parking up and over the it's like a formal Notch area between the gates.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: But that's that new parking work to think about. I

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: believe that this is the state funded yeah. This is the state state dedicated for Yeah. If

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: if there's money in that, that would be in a step. Yes.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: It's not

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: This is state function.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: This is state function. It's ordinary in the step.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Just There's no febble? There's no febble. Alright.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: So it won't

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: be in the step.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: Yeah. This is the state function. Well,

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: How much did that cost?

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: I don't smell off the top of my head,

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: but we can get it. You know, you

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: put a total the total project cost of just Yeah. Amount.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: May I ask

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: another provincial question? Yeah. You stand for it. I I just so usual, I ate that part. It's at the top of my chair. Oh, already. Oh. That's fair. Sorry. I just don't like to see my cranky mood is no Oh, perfect. With you.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: It's

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: really On the So

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: I looked at the details on the Plainfield Road Road project, and

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: I was gonna ask about this slow failure between Route 2 and the Winooski River there, which it seems like it's now about like 10 feet away from the roadway. It seems like the roadway is up.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: So this is

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: $2,000,000 for this construction. Are they do know what they're gonna do there?

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Yeah, so we did obviously the key sensitive soil anchors last year and the new solution will be some stone fill and reestablishing the toe of the slope. Is there enough space to re Yeah. It'll go east, right? It'll push further toward the river. If the river has moved, I wanna say sixty, eighty feet from the 23 event, We'll try to reestablish a table slope there with stone fill. And piece of sheet. Yeah, the sheets will act as. When you drive it out there, seems like the whole thing gets into the pupil. Yeah, I mean, there's still

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: a little bit of movement. Thank

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: you.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: Correct. We will step to the NG two. These are projects that have expanded by $5,000,000 or more than 75% compared to last year's budget. You will see that these three all are generally following the same the same input. So all three of these projects had an initial estimate that was lower than what the engineered design estimate was. So at the production of the book or the budget last year, we had assumed a number based on the limited amount of data that we had with the particular project. We did some amount of design work to to some point and have better refined what the scope of the work would be, and therefore better refined what the estimate was. And in all three of these cases, these projects had a an initial estimate that was too low, and the designed estimate was significantly higher, high enough that it landed on the 10 g two report. On to 10 g three in the roadway program. So just quick reminder, these are expanded by $10,000,000 or an increase of a 100% or more compared to the preliminary plans estimate. I'd love to talk about this first one because it couldn't be on here. Get to throw that bullet right out. No. It was not actually ever programmed as a dollar. It was a it was a typo or a mistake, but the system catches it and it generates on this report. Ignore an Essex. It was not supposed to be on here.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Ignore an Essex. Yeah. Ignore the

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Essex project. Ignore an Essex project.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Just for today.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: The bottom three are ones that I believe showed up on last year's report as well, and that's just a factor of them continuing through the design process, or or into construction is the case on the on the bottom two. So Pittsburgh brand, and this is segment four reconstruction. This is similar to the discussion on Killington Stockbridge where we had a preliminary plans estimate back in 2024. The scope did remain relatively consistent on this one or or mainly consistent on this one, but as we went through the design phase, inflation hit, and we are now up to the the larger number that you see here at 23,000,000. This project is in that that essence coming from the contract plan hit. So

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So it's for Brandon. And I think that it would be helpful for this committee if we know that with the total amount that we spend We have an economic development bill that Senate appropriations has been dealing with from the Economic Development Committee. It is asked that the planning commissions I'm not quite sure how to describe it, but

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Oh, is there?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Sounds like they'd like an interstate down on on 2 A.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Yeah. So I've had applied in Chair Corporations Committee on that. Started out Senator Weitz proposed it, kind of neck Burlington was the Precinct 87 in New York. It originally asked for a study from DPANS to a picnic at a pool intercity. As the conversation unfolded, VAPTA testified that they thought great movement along the Western Corridor could be improved. So, the committee asked VAPTA for the BLCT, the planning commissions to investigate great movement along the Western Corridor. That would include Route 7, but obviously 22A, and also the rail line along that space.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: But we have been consistently, the Pittsford Brandon project now has been probably the most single expensive project the state's been working on literally for decades. Yeah. And so I think some discussion about what we have been putting into I know it's not the 22A, but it is the Route seven Order in Canada. Particularly, it would be helpful to be able to address some of the concerns with the facts of what one bank's looking in. All right, maybe two low Take that card out deeply. Andy, was that in our Everything. The EMV?

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: I don't remember.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, we had it at the economic development bill had some money to it.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Oh, did it have money?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: I didn't see that in there.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: The money they said that the planners were gonna do it voluntarily. So I don't think we

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Okay.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: I don't think there's any money that we got to take out. We we eliminated almost all the sections of the bill, but I think that's one. Right? Right.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: This is what? This was three what

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: was this one? Was the one that we're gonna see on

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: the 03/27.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: 03/27. So you did some chopping at 03:27.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Oh,

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: yeah. Okay. And but you kept in the Rutland David Weeks adventure?

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: I think it's still in there because there was no appropriations. Anything that appropriations I mean,

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: all amend. No. It has

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: to come to transportation. Anyway, so We can have fun with it. I think it will be helpful to have, particularly this project, it's been a huge And I already

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: have you add on the work we did with the Perchance Health Study as well.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Okay, thank you.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: All right, the bottom two bullets here are projects that have hit and are done with construction or generally done with construction. They could show up on this list because they haven't quite hit that threshold yet. So the Williston NH Culver project and the Woodstock NH Scrape 16 project, both of these were culvert projects. Preliminary plans came in, and there were some more impacts realized along with the traffic control element went out into construction, and both of the costs that you're seeing here are the low bid numbers or contract completion numbers.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So did you say it was traffic control that was the issue?

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: It would have been a factor in these numbers. Typically at preliminary plans, have an idea of what the traffic control is going to be. As we start dialing in exactly what those impacts are and we finalize the plans, we have a better understanding of what the traffic impact could be or what the traffic control plan needs to be to accommodate the traffic. So it would have been a factor in the increase along with refined plan quantities and a little bit of time as well.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Okay, so it sounds like it was a significant factor since you mentioned it. I'm just surprised.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: I would have to go back to the estimates to see that what was actually estimated for traffic control, and we we have them as line items in in the actual estimate, so I'd have to go back to see the comparison between preliminary plans estimate versus the low bid amount. Okay. But it it's typically a factor as you're going through the rest of the design. You're starting to dial in what you need for traffic control, and sometimes it remains stagnant. Sometimes it dips down a little bit if it's a a lower air or a lower traffic area, and you put in a high number to start. And in other cases, you may be switching to night work, which I know, I believe the Williston project was a night project. That could have been a factor Thank in that as you. All right, the 10 gs-four on the roadway program. So these are the projects that are complete or stated differently as the report says, projects that had funding in '26 that no longer show funding in '27 for construction. Two of these projects are Hardwick ERP projects, so they are permanent repairs in Hardwick due to 23 storm events or 23 events. Those were completed. Then the top bullet is the Addison STP cull project, so this speaks to one of the versions of the culvert replacements. These are all small drainage culverts that were replaced on Route 17 in Addison ahead of a paving project. With that, we can jump into the traffic and safety program, which is to In have 5E in your white fiscal 'twenty seven, we have an appropriation of nearly $54,000,000 in traffic and safety, which is an increase of roughly $8,000,000 compared to the twenty sixth program budget. Very similar to roadway, this funds the design activities. There is a right of way component in many of the projects within traffic and safety, not all of them, and probably a lesser extent than in the roadway. Five. Five even. Then, of course, the construction funding. So this breaks down into construction funds shown in fiscal twenty seven on 20 projects, and there's an additional 41 projects that have some funding shown for either the preliminary engineering or the right of way acquisition. In a similar breakdown on the bottom is a category of projects and which ones show construction funds in the traffic and savings program. So for reconstruction intersection projects, we have three that have construction funding. There are two sign replacement projects this year with construction funding. Annually, we put out four marking projects. So this year, again, we have four marking projects with construction funding. And then down on the bottom, there's just a couple of other snippets here. So there are 17 projects that we have scoping funds shown at some point in the budget, not necessarily 27, but at some point, and there are 25 that I deemed as other projects. So this may be directly safety related or line items for other types of projects.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Would you mind speaking a little bit to statewide obtain grant? We'll be going to that a little bit later.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: I don't go in-depth in that. I can give you-

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: What does that do? It's for 2 plus million dollars and it looks like it's totally federally, no, it's a good percentage federally funded. What is it for?

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: So that's a grant we received a year and a half ago or so, and it is for IUTS systems, Intelligent Transportation Systems. And so what we're using that money for principally is WIMs, message boards, permanent and temporary portable changeable message boards.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Oh, seems so. Yeah.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: This is paying for those, like all the funny little, Yeah. Which I love.

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: I'm very proud those.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: It's principally WIMs and message boards and one other feature that's escaping joy now, but it's those sort of ancillary features on the network that we use to, in the terms of WIMS.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: What's a WIMS? A a WIMS.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: WIMS. It's the roadway, and what that tells us is two pieces of information. It helps DMV target enforcement to routes that may have chronically overloaded vehicles, and also it helps us with design understand what loads are in

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: So they're underneath the pavement?

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: They're in the pavement.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay, what are

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: the little In the road.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: The Like the almost like, they look like horn that's running across sometimes.

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: So those

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: are

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: traffic counters. So we, again, just to get the traffic volume, know, it's not like the gas station thing, drive over.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Could And be speed to a

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: bit too, let's see. Yes.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: But you wouldn't know if you were driving over one of the weight things. People drive, okay,

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: It's not like a labeled thing.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Cameras there, though, to see who the culprit is. Upside. So

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: on on a couple of them,

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: we do because winds can have various capabilities, but we can't use it or we don't use it for enforcement. But it does take a picture of the vehicle? So the way it works is when it's activated and DMV could tell you better about it, like one up in Colchester by the department. It will, it does take a picture right when that, when the patient is open, and I think it measures like my pressure, grade. I think so, again DMV would have to get into the details there.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Yeah, that's not in the road though, that's in the waystation probably the pullover.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Well the wind I think is in the road in advance of the weigh station so that as a truck approaches they have some idea of what to They could

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: signal like there was one that was open.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Yeah, I mean they've got to pull in anyway, but they also know like tire pressure is making you funkier, bigger, it's me not You have a tail tire pressure by the wind? I believe so. Again, I don't want to get way too over my skis, but DMV could speak about the capability of that.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: And that's what I asked you about on '91, right? Yep. Okay. And they're new?

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Relatively, yeah. Colchester was installed I think a year and a half, two years ago.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Okay.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yep. The other one in

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: there is the RWIS station. Oh, good. It's the Road Weather Information System. I had to take a stab at the acronym there. Yep. So this is this would be measuring things like, you know, roadway temperature. I think it tells you if the road's covered with snow.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: It does do a calculation as far as like, forget what they call it, basically a slip index as well. So our maintenance forces use that a lot to know when to So those are the three main features that we'll be deploying or updating with the NAME grant.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Well, I'll

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: just make one random suggestion, is I love that you

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: have solar panels associated with a lot of the signs, and I hope that when you purchase more of those, if you're using this grant, you can

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: take a go for those because they just seem to work really well.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Yeah, absolutely well.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And the signage is very helpful,

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: I will say. As someone who there always seems to be some

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: kind of project happening around me, it's very nice to get consistent updates. Okay, so

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: that was my first question. And then you have a project in here

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: that's Hartford.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Well you have three Hartford projects but you have a I think it's just signage. It says replace signs on VT-fourteen.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: So is it a Hartford, some three letters and then sign, Grand, something? Yeah. Yep. So that is a dedicated sign replacement project. So going back to that naming convention, when you see SIGN and then a parenthesis, it is solely to replace signs.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: But what signs, I guess?

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: These would be on Route 14, this would be anything from the yellow warning signs to the white regulatory signs. Sometimes and oftentimes with street name signs as well, stop signs on side roads. So it's dedicated to make sure that they stay in good shape. They have a lifespan just like the rest of the infrastructure.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Could you add like, if you were a community

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: because I'm just thinking about communities that are along the US 5, US 4.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I mean, and and also 14 that you're covering. I can see if you biz a lot of businesses have changed since the last time you guys come through or if anyone's come through, and there's definitely updated information, especially your law of 14.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Are you talking about the brown sign?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Are those those

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: That would be No. No. So those are different.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: These are okay. So this is just, like, driver safety signs.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: These are specific to yes, to traffic control signs. Your your warnings or street names

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: or or actual regulatory Who's in charge of the brown wave signs?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Probably BGN.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: No. No. It it it's up. It's under still yeah. It's under our operation vehicle here. It's its own unit and effectively businesses request those signs and they pay something for it in continual.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: That explains why the businesses that are no longer there requested new signs.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah. That's

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Sometimes the sign is there with the businesses.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Well, exactly. That's I was gonna say maybe take a few down. But

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: Alright, I'm gonna step into 10G1. So these are the new projects that were added to the program after 'twenty six. Three of these projects come out of our highway safety improvement plan. These are the Mendon Killington, Essex Town, and Jericho Richmond projects. So these are safety funded. Mendon Killington is on US 4 doing a safety improvement. At this time, the scope is a little bit wide ranging. We we don't have a dedicated scope yet. S 6 Town in Jericho, Richmond is looking at, barrier, otherwise known as guardrail. So we'll be we'll be looking at a guardrail along 117. Similar to the 117 project, there's a Middlebury Rifton guard project. That's guardrail replacements on 125. There are two projects on here that are federal pistol crash reporting projects. So there's a a allotment of funds to report crash, crash data back to the federal government. And then the top bullet here is the New England's New England McHumpfest project. So this is an operating and upkeep of the Vermont five eleven data that we use to put out when it comes out of this program.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: And that five eleven includes San Ramon, like all the data? They would include the, they would include the.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: I think most of the cameras are only active for patients, but then we lower the five eleven.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah, so the five eleven is really helpful. We had big issues in Southern Vermont two weeks ago. I mean people were off the road, there were tons of them, and so you could see that. Do you keep the data from those at all or can you access it because I was really shocked at how worse, not how much worse the Southern part of 'ninety one was. If you wanted to check that out, did you?

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: I think we keep some of that on, not entirely for how much of it is surgical.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: Okay.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: But I do think there is some log that demonstrates some of that history. Yeah. Okay. You.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And then did you guys?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. You're welcome. As long as you're

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: not working to Omsch, way

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: enough. Or

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Or you know, it would make you better. And we would even offer you some

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: if you'd like some. So, I'll say, yes, very I love it.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: Thank you. So on the 10 gs two, so this is the first of the expander reports. So, this is increased by $5,000,000 or 75% or more compared to the last fiscal year. The only project that shows up on this list is a project that went through the scoping phase. Originally, the the number that was put in was our shot at trying to understand what an intersection project at the 104 And IE 9 Exit 19 Interchange would look like. Through the scoping effort, the preferred alternative was selected as a roundabout. As soon as that was found out, the updated estimate went into our system, and that's why it triggered onto here. So, the, you know, we took similar or we took similar projects with current data and we're able to install a little closer initial estimate than what we had at the programming time.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So when is the plan to do a roundabout there?

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: I believe it's outside of the So scoping just completed, so we'll be entering into the design phase. So, that will be, I would dare say, a three year process, if not a little bit longer without looking into it. 2830

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: is something.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: 2037.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: 2030 something. It doesn't say that in the book.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: There'll be a new column for that.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: Yeah. So we we just finished the scoping to identify what the preferred alternative is, and then we'll be locating where we're gonna get into the design phase and and then eventually the construction phase.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: In reality, they come around the table in lending. Pat? Yeah. Okay. I'm asking a question. In rail, we say

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: I was gonna ask one too.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: In rail but I'm asking of you in rail, we say the project will be done in Three years. Yeah.

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: He's he's still 30.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah. He he he and and something. Right. So in rail,

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: it's

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: pretty typical. We lab around the table. It will be done in three years.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Since the Montreal could

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: That's Three years how long it's gonna be.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Just so you

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: So I do have a question.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yes. Go ahead. I've done my comments.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: When when you go from

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: the initial programming that you had for that project to the preferred alternative, who makes that decision? Who weighs in on the preferred alternative?

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: So we would be going through the scoping process on this. So there'd be buying in from any of the stakeholders associated with the project, which could be the public, the towns. B TRANS, obviously, is a major stakeholder in any of the B TRANS type projects. That, along with the research data piece of it, so what are the pros and cons or what's the cost benefit analysis, will help to align with what the scoping preferred alternative is. At the end of that process, there's what we call a management approval of scope. So there would be the scoping report would be created, there'd be an alternative, the scope, the management approval of scope will say, this is what we, what the preferred alternative is based on the scoping. And then our management team, our leadership team would sign off on that. That would trigger the update to the estimate if there needed to be one. So in this case, there needed to be one.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Just a big one. Do you ever say you guys ever say no? Sorry. It's cost prohibitive. We, you know, yes, yeah, but not in this case.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: Yeah, we, just getting to the management approval scope does not necessarily identify when it fits into the design or construction year. It just says this is the alternative that this scoping study came up with. That could be a no build in some cases where there just wasn't a good benefit cost analysis and we say no build. This really just took it to the end of that phase and then we had an updated estimate based on what

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: we know about roundabout projects. Just because this is ramped and it where does this fall in? Is this an interstate project or is this on the state highway system? So where does it fit in when we figure the match rate?

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: So, if I'm wrong, this is an intersection, so this would be 100%

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah. Oh, it would be 100% medical.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: Yeah, because it's intersection. And another clue, so we'll talk a little bit more about conventions here. Oh, another clue here is the three letters that come after the town names or sometimes two, that will oftentimes tell you what classification of road you're on. So STP in this case is a state network. NH would be an NHS route. I'm not sure why it's I'm but it's interstate. So just another clue as you're looking down through the book at

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: different I get the split between state and that. I'm just I why does this fit in a category of 100% fit? It's an intersection. Okay. And does that go against our total amount of

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: federal dollars? Absolutely, yes. So

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: even though it's 100% federal, okay.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: So this goes back to the slide I've published on a couple of times where we take our $325,000,000 check-in-law, right? So the 40,000,000 in traffic and safety portion of that is 100% federal under intersections.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: But, you know, one has to ask the question, And, you know, I know the intersection pretty well, and it certainly at times there's lots of traffic and it could be. But if we had more match, given the fact that we have a cap on what we've got for federal dollars, would we move ahead with a project like this versus putting it into, for example, more paving at the state level?

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: That's a little bit of a loaded question. We would have to basically look out the need of this project versus the performance targets need of the paving program, and we need to do that in August as we build the next year's I

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: think, and I understand, you know, it's judgment calls and we've got limits on money and everything, but that it just,

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: that's what comes to mind. We, in theory, if we have state management more federal money, we reallocate that money to programs differently.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So, I don't know if this is the right time, but just we need to have the conversation about how we prioritize projects and who prioritizes what. That's critical and I'll just speak a little bit about my perception of what's happening is we have had a process where the regional commissions, TAP, the Transportation Advisory Committees that are part of the regional commissions typically, except for the MPO that's in Chittenden County.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: They

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: authority have to provide input to this process and that input has been discontinued I think five years, four years, somewhere like that because what we've been told in my area is that the TAC input is no longer accepted, required. It's certainly not required because the state didn't have funding basically. We couldn't have new funding. So, so analysis at the local level on what's more important wasn't made. Now, we haven't had new funding, we've actually been reducing projects and we've had to choose between projects. And I believe that knowing what the locals need and prioritize is even more important when you're reducing projects than when you're increasing projects. There are situations in my area that I hope we're going to talk about, but we will at some point, where the decisions made by the state without notice to us, are having very negative consequences. So there's the local, examples of why we should be reaching out to the locals even if we're, we don't have extra money, but I would like this committee to just weigh in on the importance of taking information from the local communities every year the way that we're supposed to is as important, I think more important when we're reducing projects. Because that's a huge impact to folks.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: think that's, you've been trying to explain that thought like the whole session and that was the clearest, most understandable way. Sometimes it And takes me a that I 100% agree with, but I don't know how we do that. Like, that's where I'm at. Like, it seems because I maybe it's as simple as just saying because it's like as the ship is sinking in a way, it's like we wanna hear from the people on deck. Yeah. Because they're the ones who are trying to figure out where their best options are and I So agree with I don't know how is it we get the same from the tech?

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Don't It's the same it's the same system that we use to get information every year. But what would

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: we do in the T bill? We do?

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: We should do it. We would say, so we're losing money now, right? So what is your highest priority? Have your priorities changed? But the towns need an opportunity to explain their priorities because things change.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, so I guess it's like who would be, would someone be

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: meeting with all of the towns? No, the TAC does that. You have a TAC Yes. And they do that.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: That's their job. How yeah, guess I'm just already at the stage of like, I don't know how we would implement the idea.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Maybe Beatrans would implement. Okay. And it's actually not an idea. It's something that we're supposed to be doing now. It's getting information from the test. Okay. That's part of our process.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: I guess if there was language, if you worked with Damian on language, would be T Bill.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Follow your process is

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: what Yeah, the language would we could do something in the T Bill on this exact topic. Mean, think that's

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: really important. Need to be out of the chair, I would say it's a two pronged problem. One is we don't have enough money to maintain the system the way it is, And we need to articulate to our colleagues about it. And the second piece is we're probably, for the foreseeable future, not gonna be able to, so how do we better and feel like the legislature is included in people who are included? Why don't you and then I've got some instructions for you and me. You and Jeremy will both be back. Okay. Okay. Alright. So I think we

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: have two slides left so we can get through these. So the next one is the 10G3 report. So just a quick reminder, dollars 10,000,000 or 100% increase compared to the preliminary planned phase. Again, I believe most of these projects or all of these projects showed up on last year's report as well, just due to where they're at in the construction phase or where they were at in the design phase. The Bennington Peanut Roundabout, that was an increase of a 100% or more. It is in construction now, so the the total amount that you see here is reflective of that contract low bid number. Bennington signal 63, SG and L, print 63, construction is done or or very near done, so you see a low bid amount in this one. Again, these were these were on the report last year. Williston and Colchester HES 5600Print14, these are still in active construction, but again, the preliminary plans estimate was there. We had some time in development on the Colchester project. This is the DDI near Costco. That one is out the door. It's in construction now, will be in construction for the next year and a half, I believe. And then the Williston project is on Route 2A. That's completing construction this summer. So some of these are reflective of preliminary plans estimates of years past. 2014 for the DDI projects, inflation hit a little bit, the impacts hit a little bit more on this one, and that's how we got to the point that we're at. It's a

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: peanuts round right now. Yeah. Not roundabout,

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: as you'd like to call it that. Roundabouts typically, sort of. I know, but it's always.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: It's typically a circle. In Winooski, it's an oval.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: Circulator in Winooski. That's what I've called it because it's not round like a roundabout,

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: but You don't cross there in the crosswalk there every day. I do. I do not. It's a racetrack. Yeah. Yeah.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: It's a

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: straight booger racetrack. I don't know. So a Peanut roundabout is if you think of the mister Peanut. Right? He has kind of that rounded shape on either side. So the way that the geometries came into this intersection, a round roundabout or a circular roundabout would have had to be huge to accommodate trucks moving through. What they saw is if they if they changed some of the radii through it and actually had you curve back in the middle of it, they could accommodate trucks through the intersection. It and it creates that peanut shape.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Like a double diamond roundabout

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: the converging.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: Yeah. It's process.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Is it kind of what you did in Hartford where we have one larger roundabout and then a smaller roundabout a little further away? Near the McDonald's?

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: Not exactly. So that one has two separate intersections.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: This is one whole intersection where the, you know, the intersection is all the way around that peanut shape. If you were to do a u-turn, you go through the whole thing.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Wow. Rather than having a chance to it all way. That roundabout It is the first peanut roundabout mistake. I don't

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: know if it will remain the only one, but it is the first one.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: You need to get the highway art department to do a giant peanut sculpture. Yeah.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: Or mister Peanut come to register. Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Think we we ought to send a bag of peanuts over to the members from Bennington. Yeah. He is very excited about that.

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: In any case, it gives a really cool name to talk about. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it gives you an idea of what's actually going on there. You can't just say roundabout because it's not really just a roundabout.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: And what phase is it in?

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: It is in construction. It is in construction. I believe the completion is the end Okay. Of the Okay. And then finally, these are the projects that would be complete or show construction funds in '26 and no longer show in '27 in the Traffic and Safety Program. We did not have any trigger on this report. And that is what I have for you for today.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Any other questions from the committee? I'm gonna go back to paving. You need to come back and talk to us about our goals. You need to fit in the 55 miles on State Highway versus the 92 for Interstate. And that's your our goals to each one of those. We need total miles. I roughly did the calculation by going on here, but I want you to tell me what the miles are and what percentage 55 is of the total state highway system that could be paved. I need you to come back and say what projects on the state highway system are ready to go or are in a position to be able to be moved? For FY '27? For FY '27. But if the governor had said to do, we were gonna bring back 20,000,000 for purchase and use, what would that look?

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: But

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: what is ready to go, what could be moved in that piece, so we have an idea of what needs to be done, or could be done if there was more resources on the state highway system.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Go ahead. Could we, this is probably, this is a lot of work, but some of your slides yesterday were halfway there. Could we eventually get what I call a breakdown of where we're how much we're paving, how much money we're putting into paving, and where that brings us in the future. We kinda did that a little bit in some of the slides from yesterday, just can you break it down to like state paving and interstate paving to give us an idea of which direction we're heading in?

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: I don't know. So we can do some modeling, right, I'll present it at current funding levels where that goes. I don't know if we can break it down to the interstate condition versus the state highway system. I don't know if the roadway statements are broken up that way because it looks at the network as a whole. I I don't know. Certainly.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I would say that 92 miles, that's some place north of north of 25% of the total interstate that we'll be paving in. So I'm I'm but this is my rough calculations and I want you guys to tell me where I'm wrong. It looks like we were paving on a track to pave once every four and a half years if we maintain this level. The state highway system, it's certainly less than 2%. It may be north of it's north of 1%, but that's a track of on a good time, if we kept that up, we'd be paving the state highway system once every fifteen years. My vice chair will be older than me Oh, wow. We need to see the balance and we need to be able to see moving back and forth. I think our colleagues in the legislature need to understand the position we're in.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Understood. It seems like, and I get it, but we have an obligation on the interstates to do what we're supposed to do, right?

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Interstate and NHS. Interstate and NHS. Yeah. Yep. So

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: to keep up with that, we're kind of shortchanging our state aid people. Obviously, that money's going over there to take care of what we have to do.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Correct. As we become more fiscally constrained, there is a hard floor on the interstate and state highway system or NHS system where there is M1 on the class one.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So when you come back here and get in the chair, you need to explain to us where we are versus what the home is, we can better understand that. I can't believe that on the interstate system, the feds expect us to pave every road once every four and a half years. Yeah, absolutely not. I can't believe that.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: I'll absolutely accept the premise because your math isn't wrong. I'll just say that that was a picture of one fiscal year and it does not represent a target that will carry through. A lot of those interstate miles were brought in with this 10,000,000 extra because they were ready. And so we're getting

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: ready versus if we if what you were saying is if a district decision had been made and they had brought back more of the purchase and use tax, we couldn't have spent the money?

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Wow, we could have spent the money but maybe not saving, or it might have

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: gone to de lab, something like The real question is, are there projects? We wanna trust you, but we need to know why we should. Understood.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: I need to drag it out, but No. Weren't. Describe ready because, like, when you I know the interstate projects were ready. We'll be there, Rose of Money. But like a, like a state highway, a small class one going through a town, and I'll give you an example, one in Grand Isle, the guy calls me up and I talk to you guys and he said, Yeah, it's bad. However, there are worse roads in town than that, so it's a priority list, but I don't think any of them are going to get done. When a road goes bad over the winter, is it ready? What do you need to do to get that ready in the books instead of- Like an emergency paving.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Yeah, yeah. So what we try to do is match the development effort with kind of the objective of the project. So district leveling is a prime example. Something goes sideways in the winter, opens up, and we basically go out there and just make it black. We try to build up holes, fill the rugs, whatever. So to get something like that ready, doesn't take any time at all because we have relatively low expectations for it. Now, if we want to see a ten to fifteen year service life, it takes a little bit more effort to get that project ready so that it can go beyond that.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: And when you prioritize that, a lot of us do that traffic count weighs heavily on that, the traffic.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Traffic count, are there culverts that are failing, right, because we don't want a pavement and come through culverts. If there's driveways or commercial drives, we can't just add an inch and a half to that in perpetuity because then the vertical alignment gets funky, know, guardrail and their signage. So, again, level of our efforts is somewhat commensurate with how long we expect the service length of the project to be.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: We work with Megan if we can get those numbers the high level, we need to be able to explain to our colleagues what's happening. Thank you. We have to be we've got fifteen minutes. And then we have to be ready because we have bill coming up on the floor. So I want to give people at least fifteen minutes to get ready.

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: You may go as long as I can. What? Go as far as I can.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yep. I want you to go as far as you can. Yeah.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: 5.7. You know, those district level is a big Yeah. For a fluency against calls with the. That's leveling.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: If those numbers are are cut in here We're

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: in trouble. Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: We can't oh, we can't even band aid this.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: That's the same right

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: that's a different right now.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Is that? Is that

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: This is on the Champlain Parkway.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Oh, yeah.

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: For the record, my name is Joel Perrigo. I am the municipal systems program manager of Trans.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: How many years has that crotching been? I think

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: I had a 1978 PIN number,

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: so Oh, jeez. I was born since 1980. So

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: That's great. So you're growing up with the word. Yeah. Our skids out of high school.

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: Are

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: you gonna talk about that project?

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: That's just that's

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: Well, I I like the pedestrian combinations being shown there, so that's why I got the picture. Right. That picture actually was

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: administered

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: through municipal assistance. It's a locally managed project. So And I think probably Matt had it in his slides, but the completion is for this summer. So it'll all be wrapped up. So that leg of 189 that's been sitting there barricaded for however many years will be opened by the end

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: of the summer.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Oh, that's great. I don't know that we're never gonna know. I thought it was permanently.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Yeah. Long fix by for a while.

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: Yeah. Okay. So I've I've numbered these in order of the the tabs that show up in your book. And, we talked about this a little bit last time. This was Senator Perchlik's Alright. Project here. The and you could I I made sure you could still see the the horseshoe pits in the background. Yeah. Oh, that's So this was the expansion of the Sharon Paragon ride. I heard that the last one or one of those times.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: So the Oceans are both part of it.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: All right. The magic. The

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: program parking is kind of quiet right now. We finished the Manchester and Sharon expansions last year. I think the majority of the funding that you see here is for the Colchester exit seventeen back and ride that's expected to be under to go to construction later in the summer. There's a couple line items in there. One being $325,000 for paving of existing. We're still getting pavement data to figure out which lot that will be. And then there will be 150,000 municipal park and ride program. And that program was put on hiatus back in,

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I don't know

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: what year, but came back in fiscal year twenty two and has added additional fifteen seventy four spaces to the park and

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: ride program.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Quick little question. In

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: some cases, think you're moving state program rights to the towns or wanting to, but is the state going to be responsible for these

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: going forward?

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: There's a little bit of both in here, like the Sharon, Manchester, those are Vetrians owned assets maintained. The program at the bottom, the $150,000 Municipal Market Ride program, those are municipally owned lots that they've maintained.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So VTrans is intending to continue to maintain the ones that you've owned? Correct. Okay.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: That is 1,500 spots. That's that's since the program started? Since the program started. Do you know when

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: that was? How many years ago? A long time ago. I mean, ten years ago, ten, twelve years ago, anyway.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: This is Sharon. Yeah. Do we reopen that municipal when we know there's projects out there?

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: We've been doing it annually.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Sorry, I just had a ring out.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: We've been doing

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: it annually since fiscal year 'twenty two. And I have a, I don't if we'll get to it today, I do, I provided it to Megan. You could see the amount of applications we're receiving in that program. It's not very many, usually three Did to four per

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: you do that sidewalk all the

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: way down to the corner? Correct. Yep.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Do you play horse shooting?

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: I had, but that was

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: the one time. We just is is there a sign that says the Andy Perchlik? Well, there should be.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: We'll see what I can do.

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: The next program is the bike and ped program. The budget that's shown in the book is 24,500,000.0 this year. Full transparency, a lot of that is for the South Burlington raise grant, the the pedestrian bridge over the interstate. But the remainder of the the, budget supports 59 or 58 additional ongoing projects, in 43 communities, 34 of which will be under construction in fiscal year twenty seven. So we have an annual solicitation for a branch in this program. There's a federal funded component that's 80% federal, 20 local, And then there's a state funded component of it that is a fiftyfifty share, a small scale grant program.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Do you have a standard width?

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: Well, so typically ADA requirements call for a five foot sidewalk. There are exceptions to that when there are barriers or whatever, for certain lengths. So five foot, sidewalks and then shared use paths are typically eight to 10 feet. That's all called out in our we have a pedestrian and the Vermont VTrans pedestrian guidebook. There's also some line items that'll show up in the budget under 5 gs. There's Bike Head Coordinator, which is our bike head salaries, the Locomotion Bike Ferry, and then there's a line item for future projects that are addressed during the, fiscal year. This is just a shot of the projects that were selected since the last time I was here. So this these were awarded in, I believe, August '5. You'll see that in the middle of the page, sort of the middle of the page, there's one that says large scale additional funding. So those are projects that had previous grants, whether it be through bike pet program or our transportation alternatives program, and we're provided some additional funding for their project. The top is actually the new project coming in. The bottom part of the upper block is scoping projects and then the bottom is the small scale state funded projects. Next tab is 5H, which is the Transportation Alternatives Program. This program has 51 ongoing projects in 34 different communities, 22 of which would be under construction at 58.7. Similar to the by the head, this is an annual grant program, 80% federal, 20% local, typically, announced in the October, November timeframe with awards announced. Like, right now, we have to statutorily make those awards between January and March, the March. Aladdin projects are bike ped related, rail shell conversions, turnouts, and then currently we have a 50 requirement to 50 renovation of funds for environmental mitigation type projects. And then this is the list that we selected that is about this time last year. All the new projects coming into program. One example of an additionally funded project like I mentioned earlier, you'll see there's two project members that means they received a grant both a TA and a BiTEPED.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So do we have this somewhere or is this

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: It's in the slides. It's also, we keep all of these on our website from year to year. They remain there.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: So you do have it. You.

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: The next program is the rest area budget. Appropriations 450,000. Got a lot going on in the rest areas right now. We did finish a few projects in Guildford last year.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: The more it really comes to mind, have a statewide paving line item that consumes most of that post budget. So I think BGS is responsible for the WiFi because the Wi Fi has been a really big issue.

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: They're responsible for the operations of the building themselves. We're responsible for the pavement, sidewalks, so transportation related.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Right. Right. Okay, so

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: then I'll talk to them. I mean, I know they know that it's a problem. And we advertise that we have Wi Fi. Generally, yes. Or that's what the people are telling me when I

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Probably the abandoned or in person stuff.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: What do you know?

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: The Wi Fi doesn't work generally in the rest areas and people stop there for the Wi Fi.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: I felt like we had a prior BGS commissioner hire.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: I know, I'm looking, but I

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: don't think she should do it. The

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: next one is tab 20, which is Town of Highway federal disasters. This is generally a line item in the event that a disaster is declared, except that it does, for any ongoing emergency projects, it would be supported by that $4,000,000 as well. You see that we have 39 ongoing projects, 30 of which are ER that we just have not finished. Most of it's just documentation with municipalities and paying their invoices. We also have nine additional permanent restoration projects, but those would be identified elsewhere in the book. Matt probably had some of those program. Others may show up in the state highway bridge program as well. Believe this is the slide that you all have been waiting for. This is the, Town Highway A program, 31,240,000.00, this year. 6% of that is for class one town and highways, 44% for class two, 50% for our class three, and then I show that the last year's appropriation was 30.4. And then TAT two is the supplemental piece of it for towns or cities that have multi lane class one roads like self development. Could you in this

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: the miles are class one, two, class three, and would you, tell us, and break out the numbers and say, this is how much we give to a town based upon their road mile for each of those?

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: Yes. So I provided to Megan an Excel sheet that breaks it down every single town, and it has two entries. I can I can work with her to show her how to use it? It's Excel Excel sheet, and you can put in the 31.24, and you can also put in a supplemental number. Say, the committee chose to add $5,000,000 to that, they'd see what the impacts are

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: in every single town. Well, it is Yeah. And so in this I'd be interested I'm more interested in saying, so if we could we gave $2,000,000 more, how much per mile would that be in the global numbers? Because I Yeah. That's great information, and I think all the members will want that. But from the high level Yep. You know? Yep. I can't quickly say to somebody, well, if you got a class two road in your town, if we gave this increase this is what it would be. So it would be

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: Okay. Yeah I can can do that but just for reference, the fiscal year '26 we don't have the newest mileage certificates they're still coming in but the certified mileage across the state was 139.96 miles of class one, two thousand seven hundred and ninety six point four three miles of class two, and eight thousand five hundred and twenty nine three point mile class. Is that in here? That is tabulated in Oh, okay.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Okay, that's good. That's good. Yes, that's really good.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: You can add mine if

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: you want. I can make a copy of yours. Well It's in it's in here someplace, must be. Okay. Thank you.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Yep.

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: And then I believe you wanted a little bit more clarity on the classification. So the classifications of the roads are actually, they're codified in statute 19 BSA Section three zero two. Class ones are basically extensions of your state highway routes. Typically, well, I think all of them are paved roads in your downtown cities, towns, and villages. Class two are mostly paved but sun gravel. Think of them as trunk lines either from state highway to state highway or from a town one town to another town.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I know what went on. I just I was in front of the rural caucus yesterday and they said, what's the difference? And I have a hard time just articulating what it means. There's a definition. Yeah, there is. I

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: mean, statute is a pretty broad definition.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Could a town say I want this to be a class one versus a class two?

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: There is a, there is an actually

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Or the other way around.

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: Right. So typically the process is to go from class three to class two and there is a process for that. Did provide some documentation so you could see the guidelines of how that process plays out.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And then class three is what? Typically like gravel rows,

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: anything that's not class one or class two or class four.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Then there's different maintenance standards required

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: of each.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: In class four you don't

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: need to maintain year round.

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: Correct, except for bridges and culverts.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay. So if you have a fast forward road and there's a bridge or culvert, do have to maintain year round either way.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: You have to maintain a culvert. Oh.

[Jeremy [last name unknown], VTrans (program/policy lead)]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah. I see what you're And

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: you can have a gate on it too.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So I think

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: That's a little outside

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: of Oh.

[Sen. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: My Basically, where You've been in class three, you're good.

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: So there's then there's the standards related to the Missile Roads general permit

[Matt Rigachic, VTrans Highway Safety & Design Program Manager]: Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: As well. So Which is I will wanna if you got a glass door road negated it for the winter, is that legal?

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: That is not a question that I can answer.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Oh, okay. Yeah. Sorry.

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: Would be a question, I think, that are suited for our, folks in mapping that do the certified mileage and that sort of thing.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: At this point, we need to Okay. I need to give people time enough to make sure that they're ready to be able to

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Thank you. They do.

[Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Systems Program Manager]: Yeah. Naked, we'll be It's okay. We'll be