NEW WINDSOR—John Czamanske, the chair of the Orange County Transportation Council and the county’s deputy commissioner of planning, calls the process “byzantine.” Dan Depew, supervisor of the Town of Wallkill and standing member of the Transportation Council, calls it “broken.”
They are both talking about the process to receive the federal funds to maintain the county’s transit infrastructure. The Orange County Transportation Council runs this process, managing how roads, bridges, and other pathways are kept in working order.
The Transportation Council technical committee met on Nov. 17 to discuss the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), a draft resolution on air quality conformity, and the county’s long-range transportation plan update.
CMAQ (Congestion Mitigation Air Quality), LPU (Local Projects Unit), TIP (Transportation Improvement Program), administrative modification Q—the meeting is a lesson in acronyms and complexity for observers.
Byzantine or Broken
Every four years federal highway funds are given to the state to distribute to planning groups in each county. Officials of various jurisdictions send representatives to the Transportation Council.
