The California Department of Transportation said it has awarded $173.4 million in the first round of Local Partnership Program grants funded through last year's Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017.

Caltrans said Feb. 5 that the California Transportation Commission approved funding for 57 projects submitted by 32 local and regional agencies with voter-approved transportation fees or taxes in place.

“These grants will act as matching funds for local entities that have already chosen to make their own extra investments in transportation,” said Malcolm Dougherty, former Caltrans director. He added that under the 2017 state legislation, “local agencies can have the funding to do their part in helping us rebuild California's transportation infrastructure.”

The announcement said lawmakers created the Local Partnership Program to provide matching state funds to counties, cities and regional transportation agencies that have passed sales tax measures, developer fees or imposed other transportation fees for local projects.

“The LPP creates a continuous appropriation of $200 million annually to fund road maintenance and rehabilitation, sound walls and other transportation improvement projects,” a Caltrans press release said. “These funds are distributed through a 50 percent statewide competitive component and a 50 percent formula component.”

The projects approved Feb. 5 are for the formula portion and cover the 2017-18 and 2018-19 fiscal years, but Caltrans said all agencies that have not already used their formula funding can still nominate projects through June 2019 for the remaining $26.6 million.

Among projects the grants help fund are one by the Orange County Transportation Authority to use $18.24 million to add a general-purpose lane in each direction on Interstate 5 in Orange Country from State Route 73 to Oso Parkway, and add auxiliary lanes where needed as well rebuild interchanges at Avery Parkway.

The city of Corona will use $7.3 million to widen Temescal Canyon Road from two to four lanes in two different segments.

And Caltrans said Riverside, Calif., will apply a 4.7 million grant to complete work from its SR-91 high-occupancy-vehicle project associated with the Union Pacific Railroad line along Pachappa Underpass. It will pave the westbound SR-91 auxiliary lanes and shoulder and make other improvements.

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