LOUISVILLE — Changes made to urbanized areas in Southern Indiana may affect the ability of local governments to receive funding for future road projects.

An urbanized area update was provided at a Kentuckiana Regional Planning and Development Agency Transportation Policy Committee meeting Thursday afternoon.

KIPDA Transportation Planner Lori Kelsey offered the Indiana only update, which redrew some lines of urbanized areas based on the 2010 census figures. She said an urbanized area is described as a contiguous area of population of 50,000 people or more, and urban clusters can contain between 2,000-50,000 people.

And depending upon what boundary an area falls within, it will dictate what type of Surface Transportation Program — STP — funds are potentially available for transportation projects.

If the area is inside the STP group I zone it is inside the urbanized area and available for federal funding; if it is in group III it is eligible for the urban cluster zone funds — cities and towns with populations between 5,000 and 50,000; and group IV funds are available for rural funds — populations less than 5,000.

Changes offered to Clark County boundaries included an extension of the urban area being extended near Sellersburg north along Ind. 111. In addition an area along Ind. 403 extending into River Ridge, out to the Ohio River has been brought into the urbanized zone.

Modifications also included removing parts of Otisco, north along Ind. 3 from Charlestown’s urban cluster zone, reverting it to a rurally designated area.

Between Clark and Floyd counties an area was added to the urban zone along Ind. 111 to connect them at the county line.

Floyd County changes included moving the boundary for type I funds to be brought inside Two Mile Lane instead of including the road, which it did previously. A change was also made to Duffy Road to change its designation to a rural road.

Territory was also added that is to the south and west of Georgetown, again bringing it into the urbanized zone for federally funded projects.

Another deletion, and the most significant change according to Kelsey, was removal of Greenville, west of Borden Road from the urban area.

New Albany Public Works Projects Supervisor John Rosenbarger asked what the advantage was to extend the boundaries of the urban areas to include more roadways.

“I’ve got a problem in that from my urban system ... our federal money is probably at a half or one-third of what we need,” he said. “I don’t know what the expression of need would be, but it would be dramatically more than the federal money that is available in the current urbanized area.”

KIPDA Transportation Planners admitted, from his perspective, there is no advantage.

“Our group I funds will not go up because we’re taking in an additional area,” said Transportation Planner Mary Lou Hauber.

But Kelsey added the area transportation planners are restricted in what they can and cannot change.

“We didn’t add in, in the group I area ... any territory that we really didn’t need to,” Kelsey said. “In fact, we did remove roadways from that group I area in many cases.”

The proposed changes to the Indiana funding boundaries were approved by the Transportation Policy Committee.