The New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) has earmarked grants totaling $30.1 million to aid counties and cities in enhancing safe large truck traffic movement.
The effort is in conjunction with the Local Freight Impact Fund (LFIF) program, which was created as part of the Transportation Trust Fund (TTF) reauthorization in October 2016. This is the third year grants have been allocated under the program.
“These Local Freight Impact Fund grants allow counties and municipalities to make critical improvements to truck routes that are essential to keeping our regional economy thriving,” NJDOT Commissioner Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti said. “New Jersey roads and bridges carry a tremendous amount of commercial truck traffic every day, and we are using funds generated through the gas tax to make sure our infrastructure can handle the load.”
The funding enables the efforts to proceed with projects emphasizing the safe movement of large truck traffic, renewing aging structures carrying large truck traffic, promoting economic development, and supporting new transportation opportunities.
Eligible projects were placed into four categories, including bridge preservation, new construction, pavement preservation, and truck safety and mobility.
The grants are administered by the NJDOT Division of Local Aid and Economic Development, with NJDOT staff evaluating projects using a variety of criteria that includes existing conditions, overall traffic volume, percentage of large truck traffic, crash frequency, and freight nodes connectivity.