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MaineDOT 3-Year Work Plan
Sam Updike, DBE Supportive Services Specialist
The Maine Department of Transportation (MaineDOT) recently announced its updated Three-Year Workplan. This includes $4.8 billion in both MaineDOT projects and their strategic partnerships. This aligns with their mission to “support economic opportunity and quality of life by responsibly providing our customers the safest and most reliable transportation system possible, given available resources.” The work plan includes all capital projects and programs, maintenance, operation activities, planning initiatives, and administrative functions happening in 2025, 2026, and 2027.
When addressing funding, MaineDOT must create alternate plans based on the possible funding levels from the federal government. Scaling from least to most funding, they have cleverly named these Macgyver Mode, Pragmatic Progress, and Aspirational. The work plan that MaineDOT produced assumes that current funding levels will persist, meaning they will continue with the Pragmatic Progress approach. What makes Maine particularly difficult is that our needs constantly outpace the available resources. Some of the highlighted problem areas include the decline of assets like bridges, culverts, and other structures. There are also issues with rutting on the Maine Interstate and old, outdated transit vehicles in rural areas. These issues are exacerbated by the huge increase in construction costs seen over the last five years.
To help achieve the community-based goals set by MaineDOT, this work plan adds a sixth community-based partnership. This new initiative is called the Active Transportation Partnership Initiative (ATPI). It was designed with the intention of “helping communities access funding to enhance active transportation infrastructure and safety for road users.” This adds to existing partnerships that assist with everything from locally initiated planning and feasibility studies to increasing accessibility and improving trails and sidewalks. These other initiatives are the Village Partnership Initiative (VPI), the Planning Partnership Initiative (PPI), Municipal Partnership Initiative (MPI), the Urban Partnership Initiative (UPI), and the Business Partnership Initiative (BPI). For more details about these partnerships and everything else involved in the new MaineDOT workplan, check out their story map found here.
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