THE Department of Public Works believes that legislation recently introduced to borrow up to $75 million from the bond market would help fix up frequently travelled secondary roads.

Co-sponsors of Bill 472-31 are Sens. Tom Ada, Adolpho Palacios and Rory Respicio.

Ada, in a statement released on Monday, indicated the loan would be paid by the future streams of grants received from the Federal Highway Administration. Guam receives about $18.4 million annually to assist in the planning, design and construction of Guam’s primary highways.

The monies issued will allow the use of a Grant Anticipation Revenue Bond, or GARVEE. A GARVEE allows grant recipients to draw down on future grants to enable states to accelerate the completion of engineering designs, right-of-way acquisition, and construction of highways.

DPW Director Joanne Brown said they’ve been working with Ada to get the GARVEE addressed.

“In order to move forward with a number of the projects in the immediate future, I think the Grant Anticipation Revenue Bond will probably be the best option because we’re going to end up with a situation come 2014 where we may be going through almost a year and a half to two years of no new road construction,” she said.

Projects

The bond will be used to fund projects in two groups. The first group is comprised of reconstruction and widening Route 14B (Ypao Road); reconstruction and widening of Route 27 (aka Adrian Sanchez Street/Hamburger Road) from Route 1 to Route 16; and the phase one construction of the Tiyan Parkway (from the former Guam Police Department Headquarters to the Route 8 area near the Cars Plus auto dealership).

Group two includes the reconstruction and widening of Route 10A (Airport Road); resurfacing of Route 14 (Chalan San Antonio, Tamuning); rehabilitation and widening of Route 17 (Cross Island Road); phase 2b (Route 5 to Route 17 and from Route 17 to Route 4A intersections); and reconstruction and widening along Route 26 (Macheche Hill) as well as from Route 1 to Route 15.

With regard to roads that may require widening, Brown said projects will be based on the design of each of the roads.

“Everything is individual. It’s not a cookie cutter design for each roadway issue,” she said. “But in terms of additional funding to make these projects viable in the near future, it’s probably the better option because we have no other way to get available funding at this time.”