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How Dauphin County Has Turned a Small Surplus Into Major Infrastructure Improvements

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This article about the Dauphin County Infrastructure Bank is excerpted from the February 2018 issue of Pennsylvania County News magazine. It is provided courtesy of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP) and is reprinted here with their permission. This is in no way an endorsement by CCAP of the products or services offered by HRG.

What would you do with an extra $350,000 per year in your county Liquid Fuels budget?

It sounds like a nice problem to have, doesn’t it?

That’s exactly the challenge Dauphin County faced six years ago as its aggressive bridge management program reached a very important milestone: The last load-posted, structurally deficient bridge in the county’s inventory was fully programmed to be replaced.

This video tells the story of the last structurally deficient bridge in Dauphin County.  Once the county funded the replacement of this bridge, it had a surplus of Liquid Fuels money in its budget. They decided to use this surplus as seed money for an infrastructure bank that has funded more than a dozen roadway, traffic and bridge improvements throughout the county in just a few years. (Learn more about the county’s last structurally deficient bridge in this profile.)

For almost 30 years, the county had patiently and strategically planned the rehabilitation or replacement of 51 bridges. Close to 1/3 of its county-wide inventory had been structurally deficient at the time they embarked on this effort in 1984.

Now that hard work and determination was about to pay off. The county could drastically reduce its spending on bridge capital improvements by shifting from a replacement phase to a maintenance phase.

The county’s engineer, Herbert, Rowland & Grubic, Inc. (HRG), analyzed what investments would be necessary to proactively maintain the bridges and determined that the county would have an annual surplus of approximately $350,000 in Liquid Fuels funding beyond what was needed for maintenance expenses.

County commissioner Jeff Haste wanted to make sure the money was used wisely: “The county’s bridge management program had delivered tremendous value to our residents, drastically improving the safety and efficiency of our transportation system for drivers. We wanted to use this money to deliver even more value.”

Dauphin County Commissioners celebrate a ribbon cutting

County Commissioners Haste, Pries and Hartwick wanted to maximize the benefit of these surplus dollars for county residents. The infrastructure bank approach has allowed them to fund more than $11 million in improvements with an initial investment of $1 million.

Haste and his fellow commissioners, Mike Pries and George P. Hartwick, III, were thinking big, but regulatory requirements threatened to make the impact of this money small.

“Because of the forced distribution procedure associated with Liquid Fuels funding,” Haste explained, “the county had to come up with a use for this money or disburse it evenly to all 40 of our member municipalities.”

On average, each municipality would’ve received less than $10,000, which is too small a sum to do anything more significant that buy a little extra road salt for the winter.

Yet, even if the county used the entire $350,000 surplus itself, they wouldn’t be able to cover the cost of even one small capital improvement like a single-span bridge replacement (which typically costs between $500,000 to $1 million).

Haste, Pries and Hartwick wanted to have a larger impact, so they asked county staff to collaborate on a solution with the engineer who’d designed the successful bridge management program in the first place.

Together, they came up with an innovative program in which the county would use this annual Liquid Fuels surplus to dramatically reduce the cost of infrastructure improvements for local municipalities.

 

How the Dauphin County Infrastructure Bank Works

The Dauphin County Infrastructure Bank offers loans to municipalities (or private sector companies) to design and construct local roadway, bridge and traffic improvements – at unbeatably low interest rates. Municipalities can borrow money for as little as 0.5% interest.  (Private sector borrowers pay a 1% interest rate.)

As an added bonus, Dauphin County provides loan recipients with optional engineering design support. This is very beneficial to smaller municipalities who have never completed a large capital improvement project before and may not know how to navigate the complicated state and federal requirements these projects must meet.  An experienced consultant can save these municipalities from costly and time-consuming mistakes and re-work.

But, if $350,000 wasn’t enough money for the county to complete one major capital improvement project on its own, how can it use that money to fund multiple projects by its municipalities?

The power of partnerships.

Dauphin County multiplies the value of its $350,000 investment by combining it with additional funding from Pennsylvania’s state infrastructure bank.

Essentially, the county uses its Liquid Fuels surplus to make it more affordable for municipalities and private sector organizations to borrow money from the state by paying a portion of their interest. Interest on Pennsylvania Infrastructure Bank loans can vary, but it is currently 2.125% at the time this article is being written.

A municipality could borrow funds directly from the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Bank at an interest rate of just over 2%, or it could borrow from Dauphin County, and the county would pay approximately 75% of the interest expenses.

The following diagram shows exactly how the Dauphin County Infrastructure Bank funds its projects:

Diagram - How the Dauphin County Infrastructure Bank Works

It is a self-renewing process. As municipalities or private sector organizations repay their loan to the county infrastructure bank, the county repays PennDOT.  Once the debt is satisfied, the county has the ability to issue new loans to other municipalities or private sector companies.

For some municipalities, the cost savings provided by an infrastructure bank loan can be the difference between being able to move forward with a project at all or having to postpone it a few more years.

In the first three years of the infrastructure bank program, Dauphin County multiplied close to $1 million in Liquid Fuels funding into $11 million worth of improvements to the local transportation system: 7 bridges, one traffic signal, one streetscape, and one intersection improvement.

Middletown Streetscape

This streetscape project in Middletown Borough is one of the projects that has been funded by the Dauphin County Infrastructure Bank.  You can read more about the award-winning project and its potential economic benefit for the community in this article from The Authority.

“This is the kind of dramatic impact we were hoping to have,” says Pries, who oversees Dauphin County’s Community and Economic Development Department.

“The success of our bridge program and the creation of the Dauphin County Infrastructure Bank has allowed us to help residents without the need to raise property taxes. Unlike many other parts of the country, our residents don’t have to worry about crumbling bridges and road networks.”

Read more about the Dauphin County Infrastructure Bank, the benefits of implementing an infrastructure bank in your county, and other counties that are considering a program of their own in the February 2018 issue of Pennsylvania County News.

 

 

Brian Emberg, P.E.
Brian Emberg, P.E., is senior vice president and chief technical officer of Herbert, Rowland & Grubic, Inc. (HRG). He helped design Dauphin County’s bridge management system and worked with the county to develop the Dauphin County Infrastructure Bank. He has more than 30 years of experience designing roadways and bridges and is particularly skilled in creating unique funding solutions to help local governments accomplish their infrastructure goals with limited revenue.  You can contact Brian by phone at (717) 564-1121 or by email at bemberg@hrg-inc.com

Duke Street Bridge Honored with Safety Award

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Wider bridge improves access for emergency vehicles and pedestrians while reducing the likelihood of car accidents

 

The Duke Street Bridge replacement has been honored with a Road & Bridge Safety Award from the Pennsylvania Highway Information Association, County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, and PennDOT.

Herbert, Rowland & Grubic, Inc. designed the project for Dauphin County, which improves safety for local residents in several ways:

  • It improves emergency access for residents who live near the bridge. The original Duke Street Bridge couldn’t carry vehicles weighing more than 3 tons, which meant most of the vehicles operated by the Hummelstown Borough Fire Company and Union Deposit Fire Company couldn’t use the bridge. The new bridge has no weight restrictions, and emergency vehicles can safely cross it (as shown in the attached photo).
  • It safely accommodates two lanes of traffic, whereas the original Duke Street Bridge was only wide enough for one lane of traffic at a time.
  • It makes it safer for drivers to turn onto South Hoernerstown Road from North Duke Street, thanks to increased intersection radii. Previously drivers of large vehicles turning right onto South Hoernerstown Road from Duke Street would cross into the opposing lane. Limited sight distance at this location meant that opposing traffic could not see these vehicles crossing over into their lane with optimum time to react. The new wider intersection will drastically reduce the likelihood of accidents at this location in the future.
  • It provides a new sidewalk. The previous Duke Street Bridge had no existing sidewalk; accordingly, pedestrians would often walk in the roadway lanes to cross from one municipality to the other.   The new bridge includes a sidewalk that will enhance safety for pedestrians trying to access the United Water Trailhead and Swatara Creek Trail.

 

ABOUT HRG

Founded in 1962, HRG has grown to be a nationally ranked Top 500 Design Firm, providing civil engineering, surveying and environmental services to public and private sector clients. The 200-person employee-owned firm currently has office locations in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. For more information, please visit the website at www.hrg-inc.com.

 

Duke Street Illustrates an Infrastructure Funding Solution

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  • Dauphin County eliminated all of its load-posted, structurally deficient bridges with an ambitious approach to infrastructure funding.
  • Now the county is using the money it’s saved to fund a new infrastructure program benefiting its municipalities and private sector.
  • The program has already funded 10 projects worth $11 million with just a $1 million investment from the county.
  • Read on to learn more about Dauphin County’s innovative infrastructure funding solution.

Duke Street Bridge Under Construction

We begin this story in its final chapter, celebrating the construction of the Duke Street Bridge in Hummelstown Borough and South Hanover Township.

It’s a story that plays out all over America every day: a local government struggling to address aging, deteriorating infrastructure.

But Dauphin County’s story is different. With HRG’s help, they’ve found a solution to the infrastructure funding problem and are turning the page to a new, brighter future: a future they have the freedom to author themselves.

How did they get here? Asset management and capital improvement planning.

Ambitious Capital Improvement Program Eliminates Structurally Deficient Bridges

In 1984, 1/3 of Dauphin County’s bridges were structurally deficient. It’s the kind of problem many local governments – under tight budget constraints – might find insurmountable.  But Dauphin County knew that solving big problems is not done in one swift motion; it’s accomplished piece-by-piece.

Accordingly, HRG designed a long-term asset management and capital improvement planning program for them. It has several components:

  • Inspecting and assessing the condition of each county-owned bridge every two years.
  • Identifying the appropriate type and timing of maintenance, restoration or replacement measures.
  • Creating (and updating) a Bridge Improvement Plan that prioritizes these measures over a 10-year period. (Projects are ranked not just on the bridge’s structural condition but also its importance to the local transportation network [as determined by the amount of traffic it carries, whether it’s located on EMS or school bus routes, etc.])
  • Using this data to seek funding.
  • Leveraging this funding to complete projects over time, addressing the most urgent needs first and steadily whittling that list of structural deficiencies down to nothing.

By taking a proactive approach like this (vs a reactive approach that addresses bridges only after they’ve failed), Dauphin County extends the life of its bridges, maximizing their usefulness while minimizing their life cycle cost.

They also position themselves well for outside funding. A good capital improvement plan includes plenty of data about how many people rely on a piece of infrastructure and how they would be impacted if it were to fail or be taken out of service.  This information is very persuasive to funding agencies, who want to make sure their investment provides the biggest possible benefit to the community.

But agencies also want to be sure the money they invest will produce results: that the project will successfully transition from concept to construction. A well-designed capital improvement plan does just that. It shows you have identified exactly what is required to get a project built (including the timelines for permits and approvals) and that you know the full scope and cost of what you want to accomplish.  It also shows you have allocated money in advance to get the job done.

This level of detail reassures funding agencies that the money they invest will be used wisely and the project will be completed successfully. (See our article on Positioning Yourself for Grant Funding for more detail.)

In fact, funding agencies are increasingly requiring data like this in their application process, so a capital improvement plan is quickly transforming from a nice-to-have item into a necessary part of your infrastructure approach. (Our article on successfully applying for Pennsylvania Act 89 transportation funding explains this in more detail.)

Many pages have been written about Dauphin County’s success with this strategy over the years. (It has been featured in Pennsylvania County News and Road and Bridges magazine among others.)  In addition, the county has won several awards for projects accomplished using this approach: two Road and Bridge Safety Awards, a National Timber Bridge Award, and a historic preservation award from the PHMC.

But the successful completion of Duke Street in 2017 is not just an ending; it’s the beginning of a whole new story for Dauphin County. With no more load-posted, structurally deficient bridges to address, the county transitioned its focus from replacement to maintenance.  This has enabled county officials to create a new program for funding infrastructure, using a portion of the Liquid Fuels funds it used to need for bridge replacements.

Savings Are Used to Encourage Economic Growth With a New Infrastructure Funding Program for Municipalities and the Private Sector

The Dauphin County Infrastructure Bank combines this Liquid Fuels funding with additional money from PennDOT’s Pennsylvania Infrastructure Bank to offer loans to county municipalities, businesses, and non-profits at unbeatably low interest rates (as low as 0.5%) for the construction of roads and bridges under their jurisdiction. Over the past three years, the county has turned a $1 million investment into 10 projects worth $11 million.

DCIB has funded 10 projects worth $11 million

Again, Dauphin County has its eye on the long view, using its funds to promote economic development throughout its municipalities.

As their example illustrates, the solution to funding our infrastructure is not a short story; it’s a novel with many chapters and a carefully planned arc. In fact, it’s a story that never ends – with the construction of Duke Street serving as the beginning of a new chapter: the Dauphin County Infrastructure Bank.  This program will, in turn, fund many new stories with new characters: municipalities and private developers rewriting the future of their communities one roadway or bridge at a time.

Are you ready to become the author of your  community’s future?

 

UPDATE: Dauphin County celebrated a ribbon-cutting for the completed bridge in the spring of 2017.  Learn more about the bridge in the video below

Brian Emberg, P.E.Brian Emberg, P.E., has more than 30 years of experience and has designed hundreds of infrastructure projects. His understanding of project management and keen sense of business practices has lead him to his current position as Senior Vice President and Chief Technical Officer at HRG. He is responsible for the management and oversight of the firm’s technical service groups, sales and marketing, client management, and the maintenance and execution of quality management plans.