TDOT Opens Bids for Remaining Recovery Act Funded Projects

 

NASHVILLE – Tennessee Department of Transportation officials today opened bids on some of the last state highway transportation projects to be funded through the federal Recovery and Reinvestment Act. To date, TDOT has awarded contracts on 190 Recovery Act funded projects totaling $429,793,126. TDOT opened bids on three projects today and will take bids on one other Recovery Act project in August.

 

“TDOT has moved very quickly to get Recovery Act funds under contract and projects underway to create and retain jobs for Tennesseans,” said Governor Phil Bredesen. “Without the Recovery Act funds, many of these projects would not have been built or would have been delayed, so I’m pleased to see these projects move forward with Tennesseans at work.”

 

Tennessee received $572,701,043 in total Recovery Act funds for Highways and Bridges.  Of that total $15.8 million went to the seven small Metropolitan Planning Organzations (Bristol, Clarksville, Cleveland, Jackson, Johnson City, Kingsport, Lakeway (or Morristown)) in the state and the City of Murfreesboro for use on local projects.  Another $69.9 million was provided to the four large urban MPOs (Chattanooga, Knoxville, Memphis and Nashville) for use on their local projects.  TDOT received $486,877,182 in Recovery Act highway funds for use on TDOT projects and to date a total of $429,793,126 is under contract. The department anticipates having the remaining funds under contract by the end of August.

 

“Our goal from the very beginning was to get the Recovery Act funds under contract quickly, but without cutting any corners,” said TDOT Commissioner Gerald Nicely. “The staff at TDOT has done an exceptional job of putting these funds to work for Tennessee.”

 

TDOT will utilize Recovery Act funds for approximately 198 projects across the state. Of projects funded through the Recovery Act, 80% (or 166 projects) are located in Economically Distressed areas of the state.

 

Construction engineers have now begun carefully reviewing all of today’s apparent low bids for accuracy and compliance with departmental guidelines. Contracts will then be awarded and once a contract is in place work orders will be issued to the contractors and pre-construction meetings will be set for each project. 

 

Projects in today’s bid letting include:

Campbell County                                Bridge Construction on US Highway 25W over the CSX Railroad

Johnson County                                  Resurfacing on State Route 167 from Little Dry Run Rd. to US421 (SR34)

Stewart & Montgomery County          Widening of US79 (SR76) from SR120 to east of the Montgomery Co. line

 

For more information on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, visit www.recovery.gov. For TDOT specific information on the Recovery Act visit www.tn.gov/tdot/recovery.

 

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