Improving Routes 4 and 7 in Rutland, repaving Route 30 in Castleton, replacing an aging bridge over Otter Creek in the city and constructing a bike path between Castleton and Rutland Town are high priorities on a list of recommended projects for the 2007 construction season.

The Rutland Region Transportation Council voted unanimously last week to approve a three-page list of proposed projects, ranked by importance. The list, which includes projects for paving, road improvements, bridge work and other transportation proposals, will be forwarded to state Agency of Transportation planners who will use it to help determine which projects to fund next year.

"If you go back to the list of projects approved this year, it corresponds closely to what we recommended last year," said the council's chairman, Richard Baker of Brandon. "I think they're reluctant to support projects that the people in the region don't support."

Fifty-three projects — some already in the state's planning pipeline, others newly proposed by the council — were included on the list. Those that rose to the top were considered to be most important in the areas of public support and conformance with local plans, ability to ease congestion, safety, filling gaps in the transportation network, preservation, supporting economic progress and social and cultural importance.

Many of the projects on the list have been priorities for years — such as improvements to Routes 4 and 7 in Rutland.

But Baker said many of the proposed projects will take years to complete and will likely appear on future priority lists as well.

"It's not an overnight thing," he said. "A lot of these are multiyear projects."

Many of the paving projects on the list are already under contract and therefore weren't ranked. Here are the top three unfunded paving projects: