Dan Gross/The Gazette The one-mile stretch of New Hampshire Ave between Route 29 and Venice Drive in Silver Spring will be the site of the first stimulus-funded road project in the nation.
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A stretch of New Hampshire Avenue north of the Capital Beltway on Tuesday became the first transportation project in the nation to begin using federal stimulus funds.
The resurfacing of 1.1 miles of the road, also known as Route 650, began Tuesday, the same day that President Obama released $26.6 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to state and local governments to repair and build roadways and bridges.
The Maryland Department of Transportation had placed the road on its list as the project "most ready to go," said Timothy L. Firestone, the county chief administrative officer.
Stimulus funds will cover the $2.1 million cost of resurfacing more than a mile of road from Milestone Drive in White Oak north to Venice Drive, said Edgar Gonzalez, the county's deputy director for transportation policy.
And the work is projected to save or create about 60 new jobs, said Erin Henson, a spokeswoman for the state transportation department.
The New Hampshire Avenue repaving project was the first approved by the Federal Highway Administration, which must sign off on the plan before states can spend the money. The project, which includes adding ramps to accommodate people with disabilities, should be completed by the end of the year, said Chuck Gischlar, a state highway spokesman.
The state has awarded contracts for seven other projects, including one in Prince George's.
Other county road resurfacing projects on the state's list include the Capital Beltway between I-270 and the American Legion Bridge, Old Georgetown Road near Bethesda and University Boulevard in Wheaton.
Resurfacing projects had an early edge in the contest for stimulus funds because candidates had to be "shovel-ready," and it "doesn't require much bureaucratic coordination and approval [to replace] bad pavement with good," unlike new construction which requires years of planning, design and environmental study, Gonzalez said.
When the state cut $1 billion from road maintenance in its transportation budget, the New Hampshire Avenue repaving project was postponed recently.
It probably faced a two- to three-year wait for funding to start, until the word came this week that it would get federal stimulus money, Gonzalez said.
Resurfacing the road now not only will keep it from getting worse and work more costly, but probably will improve safety because people won't have to dodge potholes, he said.
"It also sends a message that the state of Maryland is ready to spend money. If other states don't want to spend money, send it to Maryland," Gonzalez said, referring to a handful of Republican governors who said they would refuse some federal funds as wasteful spending.
The $638 million that Maryland expects to get from federal funds should restore roughly one-third of $2.1 billion that the state cut from transportation construction and maintenance projects, Henson said.
