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Overwhelming demand for 2012 TIGER dollars continues
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced last week that 47 transportation projects in 34 states will receive a total of almost $500 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) 2012 program.
A U.S. DOT press release described the TIGER program as “a highly competitive program that is able to fund innovative projects difficult or impossible to fund through other federal programs. In many cases, these grants will serve as the final piece of funding for infrastructure investments totaling $1.7 billion in overall project costs. These federal funds are being leveraged with money from private sector partners, states, local governments, metropolitan planning organizations, and transit agencies.”
Applications for this most recent round of TIGER grants totaled $10.2 billion, far exceeding the $500 million set aside for the program. In all, the U.S. DOT received 703 applications from all 50 states, U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia.
The release noted that these grants will fund a range of innovative transportation projects in urban and rural areas across the country:
- Of the $500 million in TIGER 2012 funds available for grants, more than $120 million will go to critical projects in rural areas.
- About 35% of the funding will go to road and bridge projects, including more than $30 million for the replacement of rural roads and bridges that need improvements to address safety and state of good repair deficiencies.
- 16% of the funding will support transit projects such as the Wave Streetcar Project in Fort Lauderdale.
- 13% of the funding will support high-speed and intercity passenger rail projects such as the Raleigh Union Station Project in North Carolina.
- 12% will go to freight rail projects, including elements of the CREATE (Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency) program to reduce freight rail congestion in Chicago.
- 12% will go to multimodal, bicycle and pedestrian projects such as the Main Street to Main Street Multimodal Corridor project connecting Memphis and West Memphis.
- 12% will help build port projects such as the Outer Harbor Intermodal Terminal at the Port of Oakland.
- Three grants were also directed to tribal governments to create jobs and address transportation needs in Indian country, according to the press release.
In the next six months, 27 projects are expected to break ground from the previous three rounds of TIGER. In addition, work is under way on 64 capital projects across the country.
For additional information on TIGER grants:
www.dot.gov/tiger/fy2012tiger.pdf