Hickman County, TN, Receives BIP Planning Grant

The Hickman County Highway Department is one of just 23 entities across the country to receive a planning grant under the Bridge Investment Program (BIP), the federally authorized program administered as part of the IIJA, passed last year by Congress.

The first round of planning grants under BIP provides $18.4 million in Fiscal Year 2022 funding for 23 projects in 23 states. Hickman County is the only recipient in Tennessee. These grants are designed to be used to create a pipeline of future bridge construction projects to improve safety, support economic competitiveness, and to provide resilient highway infrastructure that is better able to withstand the effects of climate change, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration.

Hickman County is scheduled to receive $120,000 from the grant to go towards the total cost of the project, estimated at $150,000 for a county-wide planning program. The department will perform a feasibility analysis of its 213 bridges and identify which of these bridges would be most in need for bridge replacement, rehabilitation, preservation, or protection. The planning project will help address the challenge of identifying bridges that potentially impede the mobility of freight and people and thereafter streamlining maintenance items. Additionally, this project will help identify which bridges may be safety, efficiency, and reliability concerns.

"This will help us get an idea about what our priorities need to be," said Ronald Coates, highway superintendent for Hickman County.

The BIP is a competitive discretionary grant program to improve the safety, efficiency, and reliability of the movement of people and freight by replacing, rehabilitating, preserving, and protecting bridges in the National Bridge Inventory (NBI). It has a focus on improving the condition of bridges in poor condition and supporting activities to prevent bridges in fair condition from dropping to poor condition.

Additional BIP funding grants are expected to be awarded in the future on a competitive basis for those rehab and replacement phases.

A complete list of grant recipients can be found at:

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/bip/planninggrants2022/