Lower Moreland To Receive $403K From State For Road, Bridge Repair

Lower Moreland is among several local municipalities that has received a significant grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) to help maintain their roads and bridges.

Pennsylvania’s transportation plan, Act 89, allowed the state to distribute nearly $445.3 million in liquid fuels payments to certified municipalities on March 1.

Lower Moreland received a total of $403,435.75.

This statewide distribution marks a $64 million, or 16 percent, increase over the $381 million distributed in 2015. In 2013, before Act 89 was enacted, municipalities received $320.8 million in grant monies, also called liquid fuels payments.

“While Pennsylvania has the fifth-largest state-maintained road system in the country, we also have a vast network of locally maintained roads,” PennDOT Secretary Leslie S. Richards said in a statement. “These funds are essential to communities across the state as they preserve and improve these vital connections to the state highway and bridge network.”

Liquid fuels allocations are annual payments to municipalities to help pay for highway and bridge-related expenses such as snow removal and road repaving. There are 120,039 miles of public roads in Pennsylvania, with 72,759 of those miles owned by municipalities and eligible for liquid fuels. The formula for payments is based on a municipality’s population and miles of locally-owned roads.

To be counted as eligible for liquid fuels, a roadway must be formally adopted as a public street by the municipality, meet certain dimension requirements, and be able to safely accommodate vehicles driving at least 15 mph.