September 19, 2007 - Congressman Trent Franks (AZ-02) announced that Interstate 10 has been designated by the Department of Transportation as a “Corridor of the Future,” per the application to the Future Corridors program submitted by California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.  As such, those states will be receiving $8.6 million in federal funds for maintaining and expanding the federal highway.

“One of the many implications of increased interstate traffic is a rising number of fatalities in portions of the freeway that are simply not designed or equipped to accommodate the amount of volume it’s actually handling.” Franks stated. “At this point, modernizing I-10 has become not only a traffic congestion issue, but a matter of protecting human life and preventing many horrible accidents from occurring.  To that end, I’m convinced that the designation of I-10 as a Corridor of the Future is a significant advancement toward meeting the demands of a rapidly growing West Valley.”

The Corridors of the Future competition is a component of the Department’s Congestion Reduction Initiative announced in May 2006.  This program was designed to accelerate the development of multi-state, and possibly multi-use, transportation corridors to reduce congestion. 

The announcement concludes a year long process which began on September 5, 2006, with the publication of a Federal Register Notice seeking applications from states, or private sector entities working with states interested in forming coalitions to build corridors to alleviate congestion on highways, rail or waterways.  The Department received 38 proposals in response to the Federal Register Notice and in February 2007, selected 14 projects located on 8 major transportation corridors to participate in Phase 2 of the competition.

A Corridor of the Future will receive the following benefits:  expedited environmental review; accelerated review and conditional approval of experimental features under the Federal Highway Administration’s SEP-15 process; expedited process for TIFIA credit assistance; priority consideration for tolling programs and a portion of the $66.2 million in FY07 discretionary funding.