Senate: restore status of DOT transit and intermodal work

The state Senate has cleaned up some business from last year’s transportation reorganization, passing a bill (SB 520) that would restore Division status to the state Department of Transportation’s group that works on mass transit, rail and other alternatives to roads, the Intermodal office.

Last year’s law laid out the divisions within DOT, and since it didn’t mention the Intermodal Division, DOT officials said they had to take away its status as a division.  Advocates for intermodal programs at DOT raised concerns at the time, saying it was more than bureaucratic semantics and would diminish the program’s power to get things done even more.  They have a hard enough time since the state’s gas tax legally can only be spent on roads and bridges.

Sen. Doug Stoner (D-Smyrna), who works on non-transportation matters for a consultant that also does transportation work for the state, said that he went to Washington and met with the administration’s top transportation officials.  “The first thing out of their mouth was, ‘What’s this about you demoting your Intermodal Division?”