The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) Salem District recently named the Town of Christiansburg as its Locality of the Year.
This award signifies the hard work, effort and commitment of the Christiansburg Engineering Department to delivering transportation projects for town residents.
In a YouTube Live video necessitated by the COVID-19 restrictions, VDOT Programming and Investment Management Director Anthony Ford said Christiansburg scored 64 points out of 68, and out of nearly 30 localities, Christiansburg has been very competitive every year VDOT has presented the award. Ford recognized the Christiansburg Engineering Department’s commitment to bettering its program and improving the delivery of its VDOT-funded projects.
The projects worked on by Christiansburg this past year include the North Franklin corridor improvement project, the Chrisman Mill crossing, the Depot Park Trail extension, the Arbor Drive sidewalk extension, the Roanoke Street sidewalk extension, Phase 3 of the Huckleberry Trail, the primary extension paving of Radford Street, Falling Branch intersection improvements, North Franklin drainage improvements and Hans Meadow drainage improvements.
VDOT Salem District board member Dr. Raymond Smoot, Jr, said during the YouTube Live video that recognizing Christiansburg is important because it emphasizes delivering projects on time and on budget. Smoot focused on the fact that Christiansburg managed projects totaling nearly $10 million this past year.
The Salem District’s Locally Administered Projects Team created the Locality of the Year award in 2018 to encourage local governments who administer transportation projects to improve delivery of VDOT-funded projects. Successful delivery of locality-administered projects is critical because these projects comprise more than 50 percent of the statewide Six-Year Improvement Program, which is determined by SMART Scale results.
SMART Scale is a method of scoring planned projects submitted to the state by localities that is based on an objective-outcome process. It scores localities’ proposed projects based on need in that specific area so that taxpayer money can be more fairly distributed across the state. If a SMART Scale project has been awarded to a locality, the chosen project is funded by VDOT and given to the locality to administer.
The Locality of the Year Award is scored on three factors: 1) participation in quarterly conference calls, training opportunities and local and statewide workshops; 2) proficiency with project applications, agreements, plan submittals and documentation; and 3) performance related to the number of projects completed and project stages completed on schedule, a metric which is tracked in VDOT’s Dashboard 4.0 system, which monitors localities’ project progress.
Additional focus in these three areas not only improves a locality’s chance of winning but also improves its performance in managing the development and delivery of transportation projects.