State highway construction in the Northern Hills includes some of the region's top priorities on the five-year plan.

The state's five-year plan was up for discussion during the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program hearing July 16 at Rapid City's Best Western Ramkota Hotel.

The STIP is a five-year program that is the playbook for state highway spending.

But state Secretary of Transportation Darin Bergquist told the crowd, "The big elephant in the room is where the revenues are going to come from."

Congress is working on the next six-year federal transportation plan to replace the current plan that ends in September, he said.

Bergquist said it's clear that the new highway bill isn't likely to be done in time. That leaves hope that there will be an extension of the current funding levels and policies.

The current Congress may want priorities that could cut the state's federal funding that already is at levels that project ongoing deterioration of state and federal highways in South Dakota.

The state, Bergquist said, currently gets about $2 back from federal taxes for every $1 in federal transportation taxes paid in. Environmental issues and urban focus on commuter trains to lessen highway transportation are a serious potential for less federal aid in South Dakota and other rural states.

So, he said, the state's five-year plan assumes current federal funding levels and may have to be changed with the new highway bill.

Belle Fourche and Butte County are an example of getting some of the federal "stimulus" bill money, according to Joel Jundt, director of the Department of Transportation's planning and engineering division.

The new surface on S.D. Highway 34 is an example of that federal cash - and the county's listing as "economic distressed" helped get the project moved up a year.

The "one time money" helps other areas of the state, Jundt said, because it helps to move other priority work ahead on the state's plan.

Although the state is "in preservation mode," he said, there are some major projects on the list for the Northern Hills that are priority upgrades.

Most of the Northern Hills projects will have a big effect on residents in the area either directly - such as projects on roads they regularly travel - or indirectly because of how travel patterns are disrupted during construction and then changed by the upgrades.

One example may be plans to upgrade Interstate 90 Exit 10. That's the Interstate junction of U.S. Highway 85 at Spearfish commonly called "Malfunction Junction" both in Spearfish and Belle Fourche.

Construction may slow the thousands of vehicles using the junction each day, Belle Fourche Mayor Dave Schneider and Spearfish City Manager Greg Sund both noted it will make travel in the area much safer.

The ongoing rebuilding projects on I-90 between Rapid City and through Sturgis should make the interstate a much better route for future travel in spite of current disruption.

Maps and schedules for the current plan are available on the Internet at http://www.sddot.com/pe/projdev/planning_stip.asp.