WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Transportation awarded $511 million of grants to 46
Awards from the competitive grant program — dubbed TIGER III after the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program created by the stimulus law in 2009 — were announced Thursday by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
The program was greatly oversubscribed. The DOT received 848 project applications from all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia, requesting a total of $14.29 billion, far exceeding the $511 million available.
“The overwhelming demand for these grants clearly shows that communities across the country can’t afford to wait any longer for Congress to put Americans to work building the transportation projects that are critical to our economic future,” LaHood said in a release. “That’s why we’ve taken action to get these grants out the door quickly and that is why we will continue to ask Congress to make the targeted investments we need to create jobs, repair our nation’s transportation systems, better serve the traveling public and our nation’s businesses, factories, and farms, and make sure our economy continues to grow.”
The DOT was supposed to have had roughly $527 million available for TIGER III, but La Hood said $16 million of that amount is targeted for administering the program, leaving $511 million for grants.
“We have to make sure that money is spent correctly,” he told reporters during a conference call. “That means getting on the phone and it means reviewing documents.”
The largest grants, $20 million each, were awarded to four different projects in Virginia, California, Missouri, and Chicago.
The Virginia Department of Transportation received $20 million under TIGER and the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act program to help finance 29 miles of high-occupancy toll lanes on Interstate 95 in Northern Virginia, from Fairfax to Stafford Counties. The overall I-95 HOT lanes project includes $2 billion from private partners to replace and refurbish roadway assets, DOT said.
The Riverside County, Calif., Transportation Commission was awarded $20 million under TIGER and TIFIA to support a TIFIA loan that is to be used to finance up to one third of the costs of an $1.3 billion, eight-mile extension of the SR-91 express lanes from the border of Orange and Riverside Counties eastward to I-15. Also, one lane will be added in each direction along the project route.
The SR-91 corridor provides a vital link between employment and residential centers in the Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties and movement of goods between I-15, I-10, and the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, DOT said.
The Missouri Department of Transportation received $20 million to finance roadway improvements along the I-70 corridor road system in St. Louis. The overall project will reconnect the Arch Grounds and the Mississippi River with the downtown core, the U.S. DOT said.
The Chicago Transit Authority was awarded $20 million in TIGER funds to help complete 3.6 miles of track on the authority’s blue line between Damen Avenue and Belmont Avenue, finishing all track improvements between Chicago’s downtown Loop and O’Hare International Airport. The project also will expand Chicago’s new bikeshare program by adding additional bikeshare stations and bikes.
The smallest grant was $1 million to the Native Village of St. Michael, a federally recognized tribe in Alaska, for the improvement of existing roads and for construction of new road extensions.
