The Exponent - Purdue's Student Newspaper

Stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, labeled by President Obama in his State of the Union address as pivotal to the economic rebound, makes several projects in the area possible.

Tippecanoe County put its $4.1 million of stimulus funds to use in starting projects long desired, but under-funded. John Thomas, assistant director of transportation on the Area Plan Commission, said stimulus funds made these projects a reality.

“We had identified a number of projects we didn’t think we’d have enough money for,” Thomas said.

After a highly regulated and successful bidding process, Thomas said $5 million worth of projects have been planned. Most of the transportation projects involve roadway paving.

West Lafayette gets a piece of the stimulus money through the paving of Salisbury Street from Wiggins to Robinson. Thomas said city and county officials wanted to begin work long ago, but, similar to so many others, the project lacked substantial funding. The extra dollars made projects already desired become a reality sooner.

Another project, which Thomas said has been on the agenda for 30 years, involves creating an advanced traffic management system.

“The stimulus bill at the federal level allows us to do that now,” Thomas said.

Upon completion, the new signal system will coordinate signs in both Lafayette and West Lafayette, removing the need to make adjustments at each site.

CityBus also received stimulus money, most of which went towards purchasing new buses. John Metzinger, CityBus manager of development, said about $1.4 million in federal stimulus funds allowed for the purchase of three new hybrid buses. Funds from another grant allowed for the recent purchase of a fourth bus.

Each bus is manufactured in California and several major systems – the engines, hybrid drive and steering assembly – are all built in Indiana. The buses will be delivered to CityBus in July.

“One of the biggest challenges is to keep fleet age as low as possible,” Metzinger said.

At CityBus, operators try to keep the average age of buses below 12 years. Currently, 17 out of CityBus’ 90 vehicles are older than that and the average fleet age is 9.4 years. With the addition of the four new buses, the average age drops a year. Also, the addition of the hybrid buses raises the fleet’s percentage of hybrid vehicles to 20 percent.