The Transportation Review Advisory Council (TRAC) has given final approval to the annual list of projects to receive funding from the Ohio Department of Transportation’s Major New Capacity Program over the next four years. It includes more than $292 million in new funding commitments across the state.
The TRAC defines Major New Capacity projects as those that have a total cost greater than $12 million and increase the capacity or reduce congestion in the transportation system.
“We were optimistic about this year’s funding requests for Central Ohio TRAC projects and were pleased to see that seven out of nine projects were funded in this round.”
MORPC asked for public comments and made a recommendation to TRAC about how projects seeking funding within its metropolitan planning organization area ranked relative to each other. TRAC used this ranking as part of the funding evaluation.
The TRAC program resumed this year after being paused in 2020, when traffic volumes across the state dipped significantly, leading to a decline in revenue from the motor fuel tax. There were 36 new applications from across the state submitted this year, with a total request of $551 million.
Nearly $97 million was requested for projects within the MORPC MPO area. TRAC awarded $64.6 million as follows:
- Far East Freeway Phases 2 & 3 (Fully Funded) – $1.1M for Right-of-Way (FY22) and $37.3M for Construction (FY24)
- I-71 Hard Shoulder Running – $3M for Preliminary Engineering (FY23)
- US-23 Corridor Study – $2M for Preliminary Engineering (FY22)
- I-70 Interchange at SR-256 & Taylor Road – $5M for Preliminary Engineering (FY22)
- Alum Creek Drive Widening – $1.7M for Preliminary Engineering (FY22)
- I-270 & US-23 South Interchange (Fully Funded) – $14M for Construction (FY23)
- US-33 at Pickerington Road Interchange – $1M for Preliminary Engineering (FY22) and $0.5M for Detailed Design (FY23)
- Broad Street Widening in Pataskala – Not funded
- I-71 & Big Walnut Interchange – Not funded
The US-33/Pickerington Road projects extends to outside of the MPO area. Elsewhere in the Central Ohio region, an I-70/SR-309 interchange project in Madison County was fully funded at $7.5 million for construction in FY23.
The full list of projects on the TRAC list can be found here.
