The Ohio House of Representatives gave final approval to an overhauled version of the state transportation budget on March 1, moving the bill on to the Ohio Senate where lawmakers have already begun holding informal hearings on the spending bill.
Over the past two weeks, the House made a number of substantial changes to the budget, which allocates funding to the Ohio Department of Transportation and other transportation-related entities. Funding in the transportation budget comes from the state motor fuel tax, as well as some general revenue funds.
House approved changes to the budget include:
Increased support to public transportation through the new Ohio Workforce Mobility Partnership Program. The program allows one or more regional transit authorities to work together to provide transit services for the workforce between jurisdictions, supporting the employment needs of economically significant employment centers. $15 million per year is allocated for this new initiative, raising the total investment in public transportation to more than $85 million per year;
Creates the Rural Highway Fund and transfers $1 billion in excess GRF revenues left over from the current fiscal year. $800 million of this revenue will be used to finance new construction that has previously been approved by the Transportation Review Advisory Council (TRAC), and must add capacity or reduce commute times to urban areas or employment centers in counties without a city with a population greater than 65,000. The remaining $200 million is reserved for local governments as local matching funds to help fund the projects authorized for construction under the program;
Expands the proposed $10 million transportation link analysis focused on transportation connections between Columbus and Toledo to also include Sandusky;
Requires ODOT to construct a highway interchange on Interstate 71 between the cities of Strongsville and Brunswick;
Reduces the additional registration fee for plug-in hybrid vehicles by $100 beginning January 1, 2024.
Another change, which would have prevented the development of center lane bike lanes in major cities with populations over 300,000 was removed by the House of Representatives before the bill was passed. You can learn more about that project in our recent blog post.
Greater Ohio supports the change in the budget to expand funding to public transportation projects that support workforce transportation. While this funding is tied directly to the development of the Intel project outside of Columbus, ensuring multimodal transportation for Ohio’s workforce is critical for the state’s future. We recently covered the ongoing debate about transportation needs around the Intel project, and support any effort to invest in multimodal transportation by the state.
The transportation budget now moves on to the Ohio Senate for formal hearings and debate. Greater Ohio will continue to monitor developments and plans to testify about these and other changes as they warrant. Be sure to follow updates on our bill tracker page, and read all our testimony on our policy page here on our website.