Rome’s David Doss, the 11th Congressional District board member for the Georgia Department of Transportation, today released his Transportation Enhancement Act grants, which will distribute federal money to various projects across the district.
Communities in Doss' district had requested more than $13 million, but the GDOT’s final numbers had only about $4 million available for distribution.
Floyd County got $500,000 for trail system projects in Rome and Cave Spring, and there is another $600,000 that will be transferred from District 9 to District 11 as part of the riverwalk project along the Oostanaula River in downtown Rome.
Bartow County received $200,000 to be used for a downtown streetscape project in Adairsville and $500,000 for the Milam’s Bridge refurbishment project.
Chattooga County got $275,000 for preservation work on classic rail cars in its city park improvements, and Gordon County was approved for $200,000 to go towards a streetscape project in Fairmount.
DOT board chairman Mike Evans, who represents the 9th Congressional District, approved an additional $200,000 for the historic Fort Wayne renovation project. Evans also has approved $250,000 for Catoosa County for several improvements to downtown Ringgold.
Doss said a more formal announcement with more details about the allocated projects will be made in the next week. Doss said it’s always a difficult process for DOT board members to allocate money because as the old saying goes, you can’t please all the people all the time.
“It’s tough because everyone’s projects are important to their own areas,” Doss said. “But I’ve tried to give meaningful amounts to projects, even though it’s less than the grant requests, so that a lot of things can get done.” Doss said the DOT has a committee set up that reviews grant requests to rate them according to importance. The committee also makes sure the requests are eligible for federal funds.
“Cities and counties know how the game is played, so to speak,” Doss said. “I’m sure they ask for a little more than is actually needed, and the committee looks at things according to worthiness. We try to meet the requests the best we can.” For more on the grants, see Wednesday’s edition of the Rome News-Tribune.
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