Maine will get more than $26 million in federal funds to pay for road and street improvements and traffic light upgrades.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins announced an award of $26.6 million in a news release Thursday. The Republican chairs the Senate’s transportation appropriations subcommittee and Maine has received transportation grant funding for 10 years in a row, spokesman Christopher Knight said.

The funding comes from a competitive grant program called the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development, or BUILD, formerly called the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, or TIGER, grant.

Roughly $11 million of the grant will help pay for a $22 million Maine Department of Transportation project to repair and improve key roads in Kingfield, Woodstock and Fryeburg in western Maine.

Waterville will get $7.3 million toward a $9.2 million project to change the traffic flow and improve the city’s downtown road system and complete a pedestrian walkway near the Kennebec River.

The final $8.2 million will be spent to support a $16.5 million MDOT project to update 104 of the 804 traffic lights statewide with new technology to improve traffic flow and safety.

Peter McGuire can be contacted at 791-6325 or at:

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