TIGER offers gratifying ride for mobility advocates

This morning I blogged about the freight world's positive response to our Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery grant awards.

Now I want to share some examples of how the passenger mobility community from east to west has embraced TIGER:

• The Washington, DC, area will receive nearly $59 million for improvements in Maryland, Virginia and the District, including bus shelters, dedicated bus lanes, a transitway, rapid bus service, and a crucial bust transit center. David Alpert, a blogger at Greater Greater Washington writes that these funds, "mean some long-awaited and exciting improvements will be going forward."

• Dallas, TX, and nearby Oak Cliff  were awarded $23 million for a new streetcar line. This starter loop is an important part of a larger streetcar plan. As Dallas City Councilwoman Linda Koop tells the Dallas Morning News, "It's a different paradigm in transportation now; you've got to have sustainable communities." It sounds like she's been reading this blog.

• Kansas City's Green Impact Zone, was granted $27 million to fix broken sidewalks, repave roads, and add better-coordinated traffic signals. This zone is a 150-block area in urban core of Kansas City, MO, that has been devastated by high rates of poverty, unemployment, crime, and high concentrations of vacant and abandoned properties. Describing the Troost Avenue improvements, the Kansas City Star's editorial board writes, "This is a tremendous investment to support redevelopment in Kansas City’s urban core." And redevelopment leads to jobs.

• The Yadkin River Crossing in North Carolina will receive $10 million for reconstruction. News 14 Carolina reports, "That's good news for those who drive Interstate 85" between the cities of Greensboro and Charlotte." And, since I-85 is a major route from Richmond to Atlanta, it's good news for a lot of Americans.

• San Francisco, CA, is set to receive $46 million to help replace Doyle Drive. Now, one of the bridges to be replaced in this project is rated as the worst in California for structural sufficiency. I am proud that this project will improve an important commuter route for both highway and transit riders in an environmentally enhanced way and within the existing footprint. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom notes that the project "will rebuild a critical and seismically vulnerable regional transportation link and boost our local economy.” That sounds like enhancing safety to me.

I know that, when more than 1,400 projects seek more than $60 billion in funding, when we only have $1.5 billion available, some will necessarily walk away disappointed from this round of awards. Some will say too large a share went to highways, to transit, to bikes.

I appreciate that. I do.

But DOT is proud that TIGER awards went to a wide range of projects covering an equally wide range of transportation options.

Look, these awards went directly to the innovators, to the folks who put together creative partnerships for projects that may not have garnered traditional funds.

As Smart Growth America's Will Schroeer told Marketplace Radio, these projects do more than just stimulate the economy and help people move around better. "They point the way," he says, "towards the kinds of transportation projects we need to be funding for the future."

He's got that right.

Comments

[Jeremy Werst]

What money exactly has gone to bikes? I'd love to be able to say that I'm happy with what the grants are doing for bikes, but I'm not sure which projects for bicycles received funding. From a first scan of the PDF of the grants, it seems like bikes are mostly kind of tacked on alongside other projects?

I'm not trying to make that sound antagonistic, I'm honestly just curious.

[Michael E. Bailey]

These projects that TIGER grants are funding are critical to a safe transportation system. A safe transportation infrastructure directly benefits transit and trucking by making for safer and more efficient operations. These projects will hire alarge number of workers in their own right as well as create positive ripple effects throughout local and state economies. So this is good news. Transit will play an important role in the transportation transformation because it will be necessary to meet the requirements of the Clean Air Act. We need to get away from diesel and gasoline and move to LNG, CNG, and Hydrogen. Best wishes, Michael E. Bailey.

[Brent Hugh]

From my seat I am seeing a very clear, new and better, direction from the DOT under your leadership. I only hope this direction will continue and even expand, because the country will be better off for it. We need to keep supporting a balanced approach to transportation that considers everything from community health, emissions, congestion, pollution, livability, sustainable economic development, and building great neighborhoods, communities, and cities. USDOT is doing a much better job of this now than they were just a few years ago.

I applaud this new direction and encourage you to continue it.

And frankly those who complain about this federal spending--yes, everyone knows that deficit spending can't continue indefinitely but for right now it is the right thing to do. If the unemployment rate now is a little higher than it was a year ago--imagine how catastrophic it would have been had the federal government not taken strong and vigorous action. I wish those who so loudly defended spending our tax dollars to fix problems in far-off foreign countries would support spending a fraction of that amount on the main streets and downtown areas in our very own states and cities.

I'll admit that I am among those who worked on and supported a very strong application that was not funded in this round of TIGER funding. But when you look down the list of projects that were funded, it is a very strong, very good list.

We need to keep doing more of the same.

[Marasoiu Marian Puiu]

hello!
I thing that is a writte here in your blog a seconfd time or more and I want to belife that constructor of toyota cars not say the true wen annonce that retire entaire cars for a problem of pedal of breaks.It not true but we must to accept this escuse because nobady must to know the true hapend with this car and I am convince that you must to put effort to know the true because from my opinion is very important.
Sincerly,
Mr.Marasoiu Marian Puiu
fondator Freedomilenium organization
co-worker Open-Education