“Upset would be the right term,” said Casa Grande Mayor Craig McFarland of his reaction to learning he would not receive any of the projects. Law’s First Mega Grant The U.S. Department of Transportation will make an announcement this week. “We think we’ve done a good job of putting together a proposal. We thought we checked all the boxes.”

Federal investments in historic infrastructure have reinvigorated dormant transportation projects, but the debate over how to prioritize them has intensified in the 14 months since. I’m just there. President Joe Biden signed the bill into law.

The law follows decades of neglect to maintain the country’s roads, bridges, water systems and airports. A study by economist Ray Fair of Yale University estimates that the sharp decline in US infrastructure investment is creating a shortfall of $5.2 trillion. The entire law is worth $1 trillion and aims not only to remediate a dangerous backlog of projects, but also to build broadband his internet across the country and protect it from the damage caused by climate change.

However, some of the funds have been spent on building new highways. Much of that comes from the nearly 30% increase that Arizona and most other states will receive as formula funds that can be used to prioritize their own transportation needs over the next five years.

For specific projects, many of the largest awards available under the law come from a variety of highly competitive grants. The Department of Transportation has received about $30 billion worth of applications after only his $1 billion Mega Grants were awarded in the first place, spokesman Dani Simons said.

An additional $1 billion will be available over the next four years until the funds run out. Still, the first batch has been closely monitored for signals about regime preferences.

Jeff Davis, senior fellow at the Eno Center for Transportation, says the Biden administration will direct a greater percentage of discretionary transportation funding to “non-highway projects” than the Trump administration. But with more infrastructure money to spend, Davis said, “a rising tide lifts all boats.”

For example, one of the projects the government told Congress it chose for the mega-grant would extend Interstate 10, but in Mississippi, not Arizona. Davis said the department likely preferred the Mississippi project, which was significantly cheaper. This year’s Mega Grants combines three different award types into his single application, one of which is dedicated to rural and impoverished areas.

Some of the awarded grants are for bridges, others for mass transit. This includes improvements to Chicago’s commuter rail system and concrete casings for railroad tunnels in Midtown Manhattan.

In addition to the nine selected projects, transportation department staff listed seven others as “strongly recommended.” That makes it clear that these projects are prime candidates for securing funding next year, Davis said. His I-10 expansion effort in Arizona, labeled “recommended,” is part of his third group of 13 projects, and Davis says stronger applicants It said it could compete for future funding unless it overtakes.

However, such decisions remain largely subjective.

Defenders of growing, but more sprawling, areas like the Southwest need new highways and wider freeways just as major cities need more subway stations and bike lanes. argues that the need for health care is a national priority.

Republican Arizona Rep. Teresa Martinez, who represents Casa Grande at the southern end of the corridor, was outraged when she heard from her congressional office that the administration might have dismissed the I-10 project because it didn’t have one. said he did. Enough “multimodal” components.

“What the hell does that mean?” she said. “…were they trying to fund projects with bike paths and trails instead of major interstates?”

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who testified before the Senate’s Environmental and Public Works Committee in March, told Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly that he understands the state’s unique highway needs and that his department “It will not be a hindrance to capacity expansion,” he assured. Appropriate. ”

But some Republicans remain skeptical because of a memo circulated by the Federal Highway Administration in December 2021, a month after Biden signed the bill. suggests that “priority should generally be given to repairing, restoring, rebuilding, replacing and maintaining existing transport infrastructure” over new road construction.

Administration officials dismissed the memo as an internal communication rather than a policy decision, but critics say they bypassed Congress and influenced decisions to build highways, traditionally entrusted to states under official funding. He claimed that he was trying to give

The Government Accountability Office concluded last month that the memo has the same weight as the formal rule. I promised to write this document.

Since the memo was issued, 12 capacity expansion projects have received funding through previous competitive grants, according to figures provided to the Associated Press by the Federal Highway Administration. The state also used official funding for 763 such projects totaling $7.1 billion.

As for the Arizona project, some state officials have expressed plans to go on their own if they can’t secure federal funding, but they haven’t given up on that either. Given that traffic between the two largest cities in the region can be miles behind, it remains a top priority, they say.

Casa Grande Mayor McFarland said perhaps the next application will highlight some of the other elements of the $360 million request besides widening the highway.

“If you read the tea leaves, you’ll know where they are,” McFarland said. “…it’s a competitive process.

McMurray reports from Chicago. His Associated Press writer Josh Bork in Washington contributed to this article.