DOTs: Much More than Grant Conduits

State Departments of Transportation (DOT) serve perhaps foremost as the conduits through which federal scenic byway grant funds reach byway organizations. As the administrators of state-level scenic byway programs, the DOTs have also become byway organization partners in many other ways.
 
Many DOTs have helped with byway signage installation and infrastructure-based projects. In at least one instance, a DOT extended a project to provide for paving a bicycle lane along the byway.
 
Elsewhere, when construction threatened to detour travelers for as many as 14 years away from a downtown area of the byway, the byway organization worked with the state to develop an agreement whereby, with input from the byway organization, the state DOT hired a consulting firm to market the area impacted by the project. The state also reduced the project timeline to seven years.
 
In Michigan, a film producer expressed interest in developing a documentary on the Michigan Historic Heritage Trail byway. With a letter of support from the byway organization promoting the Trail, he successfully wrote a grant for DOT funding administered by The Historical Center to produce From Moccasins to Main Street: A Journey Down the Old Chicago Road.
 
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