PROVIDENCE – The R.I. Department of Transportation this week finished its first project funded by the economic stimulus package signed by President Barack Obama in Febraury.

The department resurfaced nearly two miles of Route 44 (Putnam Pike) in Gloucester between the DOT maintenance facility and Route 102 (Tourtellotte Hill Road) at a cost of $1.2 million. In addition to resurfacing, workers replaced guardrails, upgraded drainage systems and installed new signs.

T. Miozzi Inc., a Coventry-based contractor, finished the three-month job on Monday. Charles St. Martin, a spokesman for DOT, said a number of other projects are near completion.

The final cost of the resurfacing was 25 percent below the engineer’s estimate of $1.6 million and 36 percent below the published estimate of $1.87 million. St. Martin said all of the department’s stimulus projects have been coming in 10 to 15 percent under budget, which he attributed to competitive bidding among contractors hungry for work.

St. Martin said the department is now studying what other projects it could do with whatever funds are leftover after the initial slate is completed.

The stimulus law allotted about $137 million for transportation projects in Rhode Island. DOT put together a list of 54 projects to do with the money. St. Martin said 35 of those projects are currently under way.

“ARRA funding has given Rhode Island the opportunity to do over 50 more construction projects than we would otherwise have been able to fund,” DOT Director Michael P. Lewis said in a statement, referring to the stimulus law’s official name, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). He said the program is expected to create 1,500 direct jobs and 3,500 indirect jobs.

The Transportation Department’s current map of stimulus projects is shown below:

Additional information is available at recovery.RI.gov.