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MPO Council Approves Three TIP Amendments

Date Posted: Friday, January 13th, 2017

The council for the Dover/Kent County Metropolitan Planning Organization recently approved three amendments to the MPO’s FY 2017-2020 Transportation Improvement Program.

Council approved the amendments at its Jan. 4 meeting, pending public comment. A comment period for the proposed amendments began on Dec. 7, 2016, and ended on Jan. 6, 2017.

Two of the amendments were for the purchase of  battery electric DART buses and the installation of charging stations for the buses. The third amendment approved additional cost to the construction contract for the POW-MIA Parkway (formerly known as the West Dover Connector). Although these are Delaware Department of Transportation projects and purchases, they include federal funding and meet the financial criteria for amendments to the MPO’s Transportation Improvement Program.

The TIP amendment for the POW-MIA Parkway is due to a project cost adjustment from approximately $62 million to approximately $68 million. The extra cost is to add improvements to North Street, which is adjacent to one of the entrances to the Parkway. The improvements involve the patching of cracked or broken concrete sections, sealing smaller cracks, and finishing with an ultrathin hot-mix overlay on the existing pavement. The Parkway project is still on schedule and construction is expected to finish next year. A DelDOT representative the MPO Council meeting explained that adding the cost for the North Street improvements to the Parkway project would be less costly and take less time than treating the improvements as a separate project.

Another amendment approved the purchase of six, 35-foot zero-emission battery electric powered DART buses. The Delaware Transit Corporation was awarded a FY 16 Federal Transit Administration Low or No Emission Bus and Bus Facilities Grant. The purpose of buying the buses is to reduce emissions, and provide clean, quiet expanded service in Kent County. These zero-emissions buses will be used to expand fixed route services for Kent County in alignment with DTC’s business plan. Total cost for the purchase is approximately $5 million.

The third amendment is tied to the purchase of the battery-powered buses, as it approves the purchase of five charging stations for the new electric-powered buses. DTC would use money from the same federal grant for the bus purchases to buy three 500kW fast charging stations and two 50kW charging stations. Total cost for this project is approximately $1.9 million.