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Stimulus Bill Funds Intelligent Transportation Systems

March 23, 2009 By Andy Opsahl

Money for transportation projects has been some of the earliest to flow from the U.S. economic stimulus package. Municipalities in Bucks County, Penn.; Philadelphia; Flint, Mich.; and elsewhere are using a portion of the money for intelligent transportation systems (ITS), a class of products that include changeable electronic message boards, pavement sensors and cameras that help synchronize traffic.

In one such project, St. Cloud, Minn., is funding a traffic-monitoring software upgrade. The project received $320,000. Attaining the money was easy for St. Cloud because of the joint powers agreement it shares with its county and the Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT), which received stimulus money from the Federal Highway Administration, said Blake Redfield, traffic systems manager of St. Cloud.

All three entities own traffic signals within St. Cloud, so they share access and control of the system that regulates the lights, provided by vendor Econolite International. The fact that it was an intelligent traffic system (ITS) made it an easier draw for stimulus funding, Redfield said.

"In Minnesota, there just aren't a lot of cities doing a tremendous amount of ITS types of projects, especially communities our size of around 100,000 people," Redfield explained. The fact that Mn/DOT wanted funding to go for a diverse collection of projects made the St. Cloud ITS procurement an even likelier candidate for stimulus funding. Software like this usually comes with annual maintenance service costs from the vendor. The agencies are exploring whether or not it would be legal to use some of the stimulus to pay for five years of that service upfront, according to Tom Dumont, district traffic engineer for the Mn/DOT.

President Barack Obama heralded funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as a way to stimulate job growth. Purchases like St. Cloud's traffic-monitoring software raise a question: Are state and local stimulus recipients stimulating job growth or simply paying bills already planned for with stimulus money instead of state-generated money?

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Data Gaps Could Hinder a Nationwide Traffic Information System, GAO Study Finds

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