The Alabama Senate has approved a compromise to the 10-year, $1 billion roads bill. The money from the bill will go toward improving roads and bridges.
A number of the special projects included in the House version of the bill were reduced.
The bill was sponsored by Sen. Lowell Barron (D-Fyffe) and was approved by the House April 13 after amendments were added to include projects such as airport runways, improvements of state docks and high-speed railway projects.
After some debate, a conference committee of six state lawmakers approved the compromise 25-8.
Attempts to reach Barron were unsuccessful.
Voters will be allowed to vote in November whether to spend as much as $1 billion on Alabama transportation projects.
More than $20 million is slated to be spent on mass transit projects.
This compromise bill comes after the Senate voted 26-1 to have the six-member conference create a new bill.
The bill is a constitutional amendment that would draw $100 million annually from the Alabama Trust Fund to pay for improvement projects statewide.
"We know that we're deferring some maintenance needs from one year to another because of our current levels of state and federal funding," said Tony Harris, spokesman for the Alabama Department of Transportation. "The reality remains that we have not seen new transportation revenue in Alabama since 1993."
Harris said 75 percent of the funds would be given to the department for construction, maintenance and repair of highways, roads and bridges.
Of that amount, $1 million would be distributed each year to the Alabama Shortline Railroad Infrastructure Rehabilitation fund, which was created in May 2008 to allow various railroads across the state to apply for maintenance funds while boosting economic development.
An additional $5 million would be set aside to be divided among the seven congressional districts.
The remaining 25 percent would be given directly to counties and municipalities for construction, repair and maintenance of local roads.
"You're always going to have maintenance needs, and along with maintenance needs, there are places in Alabama where we need additional capacity," Harris said. "Additional revenue would help us address our maintenance and construction needs beyond our existing ability."
With a portion of the money being reserved for each county, Auburn could see some funding.
"I think our condition of our roads are in fairly good condition," said Public Works Director Jeff Ramsey. "Our biggest issue is capacity."
Although Ramsey isn't sure how much money the city could receive, he said most of the funds would go toward adding lanes to roads to ease traffic congestion.
Ramsey said one of the projects of high priority is to widen the bridge on Moores Mill Road, which currently causes a huge bottleneck.
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