DOT Stimulus Payments Reach $28.2 Billion

The Department of Transportation’s payouts to states for construction projects under the 2009 stimulus law reached $28.2 billion as of May 13.

The DOT shoveled out $800 million to states from mid-April to mid-May for completed work that the DOT backed with funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Since the start of this year, the DOT has sent the states $3.4 billion in ARRA project reimbursements, according to figures reported on the government’s Recovery.org Web site tally.

The DOT still has just under $20 billion to disburse from its authorized stimulus funding of $48.1 billion. It reimburses for work already completed, but earlier DOT approvals mean thousands of projects are currently under way and will be paid back when done.

DOT news from JOC:
DOT Stimulus Payouts Near $28 Billion.

Of that larger total, the department obligated $45.5 billion to specific projects. It recently spread another $2 billion in awards among several states and Amtrak for passenger rail expansion or development projects. Once those and some others projects are locked down with implementing agreements, the DOT’s stimulus money will be fully obligated.

The DOT’s stimulus money is going into airport improvements as well as intercity and passenger rail and transit upgrades, plus a range of freight grants for railroads’ intermodal corridors to port repairs and marine highway container-on-barge services.

The largest part of the DOT’s ARRA funding went through its Federal Highway Administration, which is spending more than half the department’s total on road and bridge projects. The FHWA said of the 13,300 projects that will receive money, 8,100 projects are completed, another 4,800 are under construction and a few hundred have yet to begin.

-- Contact John D. Boyd at jboyd@joc.com. Follow him on Twitter @jboydjoc.