Sanders, Searles push transportation plan with $408 million for Vermont (VTDigger)

February 14, 2012

By Greg Guma

A national transportation group report ranked Vermont’s rural roads as the worst in the nation, and that’s unlikely to change unless the U.S. Senate’s version of a pending transportation bill prevails. If it doesn’t, the state will have to cut $160 million from transportation spending over the next five years, Vermont Transportation Secretary Brian Searles said Tuesday.

“The Senate bill is the one we support,” Searles explained at a joint press conference with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. “The House bill, frankly, takes us several steps backward.”

The Senate will debate the highway reauthorization bill this week, said Sanders, a member of the Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Its version provides $109 billion for infrastructure improvements nationally over two years. That would mean about $408 million for Vermont.

VTrans depends on federal money, Searles said. “Our capital program is about 80 percent federally funded. Overall spending for the agency is about 60 percent federal.”

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