Q&A
Federal infrastructure funding allocation and utilization by New York City
1:43:47
ยท
4 min
Council Member Brooks-Powers inquires about the allocation and utilization of federal funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) for New York City. DOT officials provide information on funding received and its uses.
- The city has secured over $2.3 billion in federal funding, with DOT receiving over $300 million
- Funding has been used for various projects, including replacing city tax funding and starting new pilot programs
- DOT has applied for and received grants for bridges, street reconstruction, and traffic-related projects
Selvena Brooks-Powers
1:43:47
Okay.
1:43:59
I wanna talk a little bit about the federal funding.
1:44:03
So on November 5, 2021, the US house of representatives passed the IIJA to invest in the nation's infrastructure, including providing funding for roads and bridges, rail, transit ports, airports, the electric grid, water systems, broadband, and other priorities.
1:44:24
The legislation has provided $1,200,000,000,000, excuse me, in total spending over 5 years, including $550,000,000,000 in new funding, with about half of the total and the new funding going to the United States Department of Transportation.
1:44:46
How much funding how much federal funding from the IIJA has been allocated to New York City to date?
Paul Ochoa
1:44:55
I have the DOT numbers.
1:44:57
The city as a whole and city hall has been leading this this effort have been applying for all types of competitive applications.
1:45:05
It is usually not just the DOT.
1:45:08
It's EDC may have a project.
1:45:10
DEP may have a project.
1:45:11
HPD may have projects.
1:45:13
So, but in terms of DOT, we've received over $300,000,000 worth of federal funding.
Selvena Brooks-Powers
1:45:19
1,000,000 or 1,000,000,000?
Paul Ochoa
1:45:20
1,000,000,000.
1:45:23
But this is just DOT.
1:45:24
I I know for a fact the the city has surpassed the $1,000,000,000 mark.
1:45:29
If we count EDC actually, $2,000,000,000 mark, if we count the other prod Parks has also received a good chunk of federal funding.
1:45:37
So, actually, it's 2,300,000,000 that the city has secured.
Selvena Brooks-Powers
1:45:44
How much federal funding is being utilized by DOT?
Paul Ochoa
1:45:48
So a lot of our, funding application or funding projects were projects that were already underway.
1:45:54
So we've essentially what we do is we replace or or displace the city tax funding and we put in, federal funding.
1:46:02
There are a couple of pilots though that we won and we are in the process of starting.
1:46:08
One of the just very pertinent to this topic is our automated paving assessment.
1:46:14
Essentially, we are going to be, overhauling the way we assess our streets, using automated, artificial intelligence technology, which we're very excited about.
1:46:24
We received about $4,400,000, for that grant, and that we are working on a grant agreement.
1:46:30
At this point, we're gonna go through the federal procurement process, and we're gonna secure a vendor to implement that, but it is very exciting.
1:46:37
I would say the vast majority of the funding that we received has already been, spent, if you will, because they've been placed in capital projects.
Selvena Brooks-Powers
1:46:45
Just not all of it?
Paul Ochoa
1:46:46
Not not all of it.
1:46:47
No.
1:46:47
Because we have other pilots, such as the one I mentioned that that, that we are either have started or will start very, very, very soon.
Selvena Brooks-Powers
1:47:00
What type of grants has DOT applied for and which have been awarded?
Paul Ochoa
1:47:07
Oh, boy.
1:47:07
We applied so many different sort of grants.
1:47:09
So we've applied for bridge grants.
1:47:10
We've applied for street reconstruction grants.
1:47:13
We've applied for pilot.
1:47:14
We've we've applied, sort of traffic, traffic related grants.
1:47:21
The way it worked is every time there was a NOFO or a a notice of, I'm sorry.
1:47:27
I'm blanking on the acronym.
1:47:29
Notice of funding opportunity, we would look to see what projects in our that that we would wanna undertake could fit in there that criteria, and then we've been really, really aggressive at applying at all the the funding opportunities.
1:47:42
We usually, have a huddle internally.
1:47:45
We come up with ideas, ship them over to city hall.
1:47:49
They they would tend to approve, and then we would start on the application.
1:47:53
But it's it's run the gamut from across all our operations, I would say.
Selvena Brooks-Powers
1:48:01
Are there any additional grants that DOT expects to be granted?
Paul Ochoa
1:48:07
I think we are all expecting, infrastructure grants to continue, but, we don't know yet.
Christopher Leon Johnson
1:48:14
There are
Paul Ochoa
1:48:14
some long standing, grants that we don't expect that they'll be canceled, but it's it's hard to anticipate.