The Transportation Research Board (TRB) National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) released the report (Synthesis 414) “Effective Delivery of Small-Scale Federal-Aid Projects.”  The report compiles and documents streamlined methods for meeting federal funding requirements for small-scale highway projects. A primary objective of the study is to explore ways that state departments of transportation (DOTs) work with local agencies to implement small projects eligible for federal funding.

For this study, “small-scale” is defined as projects administered by state or local transportation agencies that contain federal funding of $300,000 or less.  Information used in this study was acquired through a review of the literature, a survey of local program agency administrators in each of ten focus state DOTs, and interviews with representatives from several agencies and organizations involved at various levels with the locally administered federal-aid process.