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Federal grant to help improve statewide
roadway information efforts

Creating and maintaining comprehensive one-stop information about all of Idaho’s roadways – state, city and county – has been an elusive goal.

A partnership involving ITD and Inside Idaho (University of Idaho) recently was a $68,000 grant from the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) to support and further data collection and exchange under the National Spatial Infrastructure Cooperative Agreement Program.

Idaho’s proposal was one of four nationwide to be funded for the Cooperative Agreements Program (CAP) Category 7 grant. CAP grants are intended to “fund innovative projects in the geospatial data community to build the infrastructure necessary to effectively discover, access, share, manage and use digital geographic data.”

The project demonstrates ITD’s collaboration with local governments, other state agencies and the federal government, said GIS Manager Brian Emmen.

“It also furthers our ongoing effort to develop spatial information for local roads that ITD doesn’t manage.”

Reliable and digitally accessible geospatial information is essential to the operation of many global positioning systems (GPS), including those used in passenger vehicles for navigation.

Once completed, the statewide dataset for all road centerlines will be useful by ITD in several ways, such as establishing the precise location of motor vehicle crashes throughout the state, Emmen said.

Grant funds will be used to add six more county data contributors to the Idaho Roads Framework (bringing the total number of contributors to 23).

Funds will improve the existing automated data collection program and help with documenting, recommending and implementing ways the Idaho Roads Framework, ITD and the Idaho E911 Emergency Communications Commission can achieve a sustainable Roads Framework.

Data collected will become part of the The National Map , a cornerstone of the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Geospatial Program.

The National Map is a collaborative effort among the USGS and other federal, state and local partners to improve and deliver topographic information for the nation, according to the agency’s Web site.