That work is in addition to the routine maintenance activities such as guardrail replacement, ditching and bridge washing. Work will be spread out across the state, but a great deal is scheduled for the Burlington area, the Barre-Montpelier area, Bennington and northwestern Vermont, including the main highway through the Champlain Islands. The agency is turning projects out so fast that the federal government can't keep up with us. Some of the reason for that, Transportation Secretary Brian Searles said, is that the agency has thinned out the number of projects it is working on, meaning that engineering and administrative staff aren't focused on projects that have little likelihood of being built in the next three years or so. The agency recommended that the Legislature cancel 56 projects, and lawmakers agreed to delay all but two.
Every project has a fan.
It's all a matter of the budget. The biggest project under construction this year is the beginning of work on the Bennington Bypass. There also will be a lot of work on railroad lines in the Bennington region. Also at his news conference, Dean disputed a report in The Burlington Free Press about a speech he gave Tuesday in Washington to a group assembled by the Democratic Governors' Association. Dean spoke at a lunch meeting of members of the association, which includes politicians and business leaders, said association spokesman George Shelton.