Attention Minnesota road maintenance staff:

Have you ever dreamed that all of your tinkering, fussing, and fiddling in the shop and on the road could help improve every road in Minnesota? Do you need funding to improve your sign maintenance and installation process? Or maybe you’ve come up with an idea for a new tool for controlling roadside vegetation or a design for a more effective work-zone safety product. Whatever it is, the Local Operational Research Assistance (OPERA) Program wants to hear about it.

Funding for 2015 OPERA projects is now available, and it’s easy to submit a proposal. Simply fill out the brief proposal application (50 KB DOC) and submit it via e-mail to Mindy Carlson at Minnesota LTAP. There isn’t a deadline to submit your proposal, but FY15 funds are limited and they often go quickly.

The maximum funding per project is $10,000, and local agencies are welcome to submit more than one proposal.

Project Guidelines

Your proposed research project should focus on the timely development of relevant ideas or methods that improve transportation or maintenance operations. Our goal is to collect and disseminate homegrown, innovative solutions to the everyday challenges our transportation workforce faces on the job. Counties, cities, and townships, this is your opportunity to encourage your maintenance staff to become actively involved in researching and testing their ideas.

To see what other local agencies have done with OPERA funding, check out our fact sheets and annual reports, or watch these videos highlighting previous OPERA projects:

• Traffic Control Response Trailer (City of Lakeville)
• Snowalker (City of Glenwood)
• Mini Paver (City of Cottage Grove)

Program Sponsors

The Local OPERA Program is funded by the Minnesota Local Road Research Board and administered by the Minnesota Local Technical Assistance Program.