Area Transportation Partnerships

West Central Minnesota ATP was established to bring together the transportation improvement recommendations of the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT), regional development commissions (RDCs), Fargo-Moorhead Area Planning Organization (MPO), cities, and counties into an integrated list of transportation investments in the form of the Area Transportation Improvement Program (ATIP).

West Central Minnesota ATP also:

• Reviews and comment on the draft STIP
• Establishes criteria for project selection
• Partners with the MPO to incorporate projects from the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP)
• Participates with MnDOT District 4 in the development and review of policies and procedures for managing the program.
• Develops and review priority lists for programs that are not included in the target.

Project changes

Program Committees are charged with reviewing project scope changes, year changes, and cost adjustments and will make recommendation to the ATP for approval. Project changes, including added inflation costs, are to be managed within the current STIP funding guidance.

Funding protection

Once a project has been listed in the approved STIP, that project will continue to retain funding unless:

• The ATP determines that the scope of the project has changed substantially from the original submittal.
• The sponsoring agency requests that the project be withdrawn.
• The ATP experiences a significant decrease in funding target resulting in reprioritization of all projects in the affected years of the STIP.

STIP amendments and administrative modifications

The STIP, once approved by the Federal Highways Administration (FHWA), may be updated throughout the course of the year, and needs to be updated prior to a project’s federal authorization and bid letting, if certain project changes have occurred.

• Typical STIP amendments:
• A new project is being added to the STIP
• There is a change in overall project length of more than 0.3 miles
• Adding or removing phases of work which increases or decreases the total project cost
• Changing project scope
• When the project cost changes by a certain percentage based on the overall cost of the project.
• Typical STIP administrative modifications:
• The project cost changes by a certain percentage based on the overall cost of the project
• Project identified that will use a set aside
• Change the STIP year
• Addition of a state-funded project to the STIP
• Adding a locally-funded project to a federally-funded project
• Technical corrections
• Adding or removing advance construction
• Removing a project
• Splitting a project
• Process:
• MnDOT District 4, or its partners, will initiate the amendment or modification and the District, in consultation with its partners, will determine which document is appropriate and if and how financial constraint is maintained.
• The needed document is drafted by MnDOT District 4 and send to MnDOT’s Central Office for review and processing. Central Office compiles the requests statewide and submits a batch to FHWA (or Federal Transit Administration) for their approval.
• If the project is located within the MPO planning boundaries, the MPO TIP will also need to be amended, following the process identified in the MPO Public Participation Plan.
• For STIP amendments, District 4 staff will briefly describe to the ATP the project changes during the STIP status updates at the ATP meeting.
• The ATP will be informed of and MPO TIP amendments.
• Further detail is provided in April 15, 2015 FHWA/FT and MnDOT STIP Amendment Guidance.

West Central Minnesota ATP meetings are open to the public.

Meeting materials

• View meeting agendas and notes

Meeting schedule

• Friday, Jan. 12, 2024
• Friday, March 8, 2024
• Friday, April 5, 2024
• Friday, June 7, 2024

Accessibility

To request an ASL or foreign language interpreter, call 651-366-4720. To request other reasonable accommodations, call the Minnesota Relay Service toll-free at 1-800-627-3529 (TYY, Voice or ASCII) or 711, or email your request to adarequest.dot@state.mn.us.

• October to January: Solicit projects
• February: Evaluate and prioritize projects
• March: Draft ATIP
• April: Public comment and review period
• May: Submit draft ATIP to MnDOT Central Office
• June: Draft STIP review and comment
• July: STIP approval by Commissioner

West Central Minnesota ATP membership consists of 13 voting members and six non-voting members, comprised of individuals representing counties, cities, regional planning agencies, tribal nations, transit, MnDOT, and other transportation interests.

Voting members

• Ken Johnson, County commissioner, Grant County
• Rusty Dimberg   Big Stone County Commissioner, Upper Minnesota Valley Regional Development Commission
• Jeff Kuhn, City Engineer, Morris City Engineer,
• Brian Giese, County Engineer, Pope County Engineer,
• Jonathan Large  Mahnomen County Engineer Headwaters Regional Development Commission
• Bob Kopitzke, County Commissioner, Stevens County Commissioner
• Chad Gillespie, County Engineer, Traverse County Engineer
• Kevin Johnson, Transit Director, Rural Transit
• Ben Griffith, Executive Director, FM COG
• Nathan Gannon, District State Aid Engineer, MnDOT District 4
• Shiloh Wahl, District Engineer, MnDOT District 4
• Michael Bowman Sr., Director of Public Works, White Earth Nation
• Tom Lundberg, Assistant District Engineer, MnDOT District 4 

Non-voting members

• Dan Farnsworth, Fargo-Moorhead Metro COG
• John Groothuis, Transit Project Manager, MnDOT Office of Transit
• Brianna Nelsen, Upper Minnesota Valley RDC
• Wayne Hurley, West Central Initiative
• Tony Klaers, Headwaters RDC
• Mary Safgren, Planning Director, MnDOT District 4
• Rosemary Bruce-White, Principle Planner, MnDOT District 4

• Operations and Guidance Manual (PDF)

The Transportation Alternatives Solicitation is a competitive grant opportunity for local communities and regional agencies to fund projects for pedestrian and bicycle facilities, historic preservation, Safe Routes to School and more. West Central Minnesota will be soliciting 1.4 million dollars in available grant funding across the twelve-county region for projects to be constructed in 2028. Additional funds are available for qualified applicants that can deliver a project by fiscal year 2027.

2023-2024 solicitation timeline

• Monday Oct. 2, 2023: Announce solicitation. Open letter of intent period.
• Friday, Nov. 3, 2023: Deadline for applicants to submit letters of intent.
• Monday, Nov. 20, 2023: Deadline for RDO/MPO/district review of letters of intent. Recommendation to proceed forward with full application given to applicants.
• Friday, Nov. 24, 2023: Official start of full application period.
• Friday, Jan. 12, 2024: Deadline for applicants to submit full applications.
• Friday, April 12, 2024: Deadline for ATPs to select projects.

Resources

• Transportation Alternatives website
• Transportation Alternative Full application
• Letter of Intent Reviewer Checklist (Word)
• Letter of Intent Worksheet (Word)
• Guidebook (Word)

How the STIP is tied into the CHIP

The STIP is created by drawing projects from the Capital Highway Investment Plan (CHIP), the 10-year plan of which the first four years are the STIP and years 5-10 are the work plan years.

• View the CHIP