As municipalities across the country address the challenge of repairing aging infrastructure, Northampton County officials have created an innovative financing plan that avoids federal and state funding they say could be a model for others.
County Executive John Brown described the Public Private Transportation Partnership, or P3, on Wednesday, the last day of the three-day Pennsylvania Economic Development’s fall conference held at the Renaissance Hotel in Allentown.
“The bridge infrastructure challenge is on everyone’s minds,” Brown said.
The explosion of warehouses in the Lehigh Valley is creating more truck traffic on local roads, and traffic jams and bottlenecks will occur if roads and bridges are not repaired, he said.
After more than a year and a half of planning, Northampton officials devised an alternative financing plan to pay for the repair or replacement of 33 bridges that doesn’t require borrowing money from the state or federal government, which would have come with requirements and restrictions.
The key was using a state law that allows transfer of ownership of the county’s bridges to a municipal authority. The county designated its General Purpose Authority as that public entity, which in turn, transferred ownership of the bridges to the developer, which would return to the county after 10 years.
The plan has saved the county 20 percent to 30 percent less, or about $17 million, than financing through a traditional approach, delivers a faster turn-around time and transfers the risk to the developers, Brown said.
Kriger Construction Inc. of Dickson City, Lackawanna County, put in a winning bid of $38 million and is financing the project through its own money and FNCB bank in Dunmore, Lackawanna County.
The project started in March is required to be completed in four years.
Brown said his goal was to avoid raising taxes to pay for the bridge project and to create a sustainable project, “not a one-time fix.”
