Lancaster County transportation officials are downsizing their ambitions four months after they were passed over for a huge federal grant to improve Harrisburg Pike.

Their original application seeking $91.5 million is being pared to $30.8 million.

The scope of the work also is being reduced.

The previous application, submitted last fall, included replacement of the interchange at Route 283 and State Road, reconnection of city streets near North Prince Street in Lancaster city and many projects in between.

The new application, due in August, would likely include replacement of the Route 30/Harrisburg Pike interchange, widening of the road between the interchange and the Norfolk Southern overpass bridge, connecting the streets in the area behind Clipper Magazine Stadium and building a walking and biking trail between the city and Long's Park.

Officials are applying for a grant from a $600 million fund included in an appropriations bill for the federal Transportation and Housing and Urban Development departments and other related agencies.

The grant guidelines are similar to those governing the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program. Lancaster was among about 1,400 government entities seeking part of a $1.5 billion pool of economic stimulus funds. Only 51 of those programs received funding, federal Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced in February.

On Monday, Lancaster County's Transportation Technical Advisory Committee voted to recommend the county submit a pared-down application. The county's Transportation Coordinating Committee will take up the matter at its June 28 meeting.

The county must submit a pre-application notice by July 16 in order to be considered for the grant.

The most expensive item in the proposed application would be the replacement of the Route 30/Harrisburg Pike interchange, a $20 million project.

Rebuilding the 9-year-old interchange is intended to improve traffic flow. It also would accommodate increased traffic if the proposed Crossings shopping center is built on land across from Long's Park.

By including the interchange in the application, the $5 million allocated for the road project by developer High Real Estate, which wants to build Crossings, could be counted as part of the local match for the grant.

The county needs to provide a match of at least $6 million, or 20 percent of the application.

Another $14 million provided by Lancaster General Hospital, Franklin & Marshall College and Norfolk Southern for the relocation of the Dillerville rail yard also could be counted as a local match, said Harriet Parcells, a county senior transportation planner who is preparing the application.

That money could be included because of the inclusion in the application of a project that would connect streets severed by the Dillerville rail yard. The rail yard is being moved to an area behind the Harrisburg Pike post office.

Plans call for Liberty Street to be connected to College Avenue and Charlotte Street to be connected to a new street called Stadium Drive.

A third facet to the plan is the widening of Harrisburg Avenue between the Toys "R" Us store and the Norfolk Southern overpass bridge.

And $200,000 is being sought for a pedestrian and bicycle path that would connect the city to Long's Park. There is no pedestrian access to the park.

"A lot of people do try to walk to Long's Park and back during the (summer concert series on Sundays), and it really is a hazard having them walk along the highway," said Roy Baldwin, a member of the Lancaster Transportation Authority.

A second option, with a $35.2 million application price tag, was rejected by the committee Monday. That proposal would have left out the Route 30/Harrisburg Pike interchange reconstruction and the widening of Harrisburg Avenue, but it would have included many more less costly projects along the corridor to State Road.

Committee chairman Leo Lutz, the Columbia mayor, questioned whether doing the other improvements without the interchange reconstruction would create a bottleneck.

"Probably," Royer said.

Parcells said the Transportation Coordinating Committee remains committed to making improvements throughout the corridor. Those proposed changes were identified in a 2007 study that is the basis for both grant applications.

bharris@lnpnews.com