TIGER Recovery Funds will be used to create more jobs.
Press Release Summary:
State transportation agencies received $777 million from US DOT to help fund 22 state-sponsored projects. Agencies from 23 states were awarded 52% of $1.5 billion made available by Congress via American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for TIGER grant program. AASHTO President Larry Brown expressed appreciation that 9 TIGER grants were awarded to states for freight and intermodal improvements. States also received grants for 7 highway, 3 bridge, and 3 transit projects.
Original Press Release:
States Awarded $777 Million in TIGER Recovery Funds from U.S. DOT Grants Issued on First Anniversary of Recovery Act Will Create More Jobs
WASHINGTON-State transportation agencies received $777 million today from the U.S. Department of Transportation to help fund 22 state-sponsored projects including several that will improve freight connections. State DOTs and affiliated agencies from 23 states were awarded 52 percent of the $1.5 billion made available by Congress through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for the TIGER grant program.
"We are particularly pleased to see nine TIGER grants awarded to states for freight and intermodal improvements," said AASHTO President Larry "Butch" Brown, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Transportation, whose emphasis areas this year include improving freight transportation. "These investments will unclog bottlenecks that delay freight shipments, reconstruct ports, improve rail lines - producing long-term economic benefits well beyond the initial construction work."
States also received grants for seven highway, three bridge, and three transit projects. A complete list of all projects and their descriptions can be found at http://www.dot.gov/documents/finaltigergrantinfo.pdf.
"The federal economic recovery TIGER funds awarded today to states will support a total project volume of $4 billion when state, local, private, and other matching funds are combined," said John Horsley, AASHTO executive director. "State DOTs have already started or completed work on 12,250 recovery projects worth $26.4 billion. On today's one-year anniversary of the recovery act's signing, states are once again ready to create thousands of new jobs in the short term during design and construction of these TIGER projects while building critical infrastructure that will benefit generations of Americans to come." An AASHTO report outlining the first year of state successes in spending the transportation portion of the recovery act is available at recovery.transportation.org.
Several states shared grants for regional projects including $98 million for Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia's National Gateway Freight Rail Corridor. The project will enhance transportation service options along three major freight rail corridors owned and operated by CSX through the Midwest and along the Atlantic coast. Improvements will allow trains to carry double-stack containers, increase freight capacity, and make the corridor more marketable to major East Coast ports and shippers.
Other significant freight awards given to state-sponsored projects include $105 million for intermodal facilities in Birmingham, Ala., and Memphis, Tenn.; $100 million to the Illinois Department of Transportation for a package of 78 projects that address freight rail congestion in the Chicago area; $33.8 million to the California Department of Transportation to eliminate a grade crossing in Colton that has become a chokepoint for freight trains coming in and out of the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles; $24.5 million to the Hawaii Department of Transportation to reconstruct a container yard at Honolulu Harbor; and $20 million to the Mississippi State Port Authority for rail improvements at the Port of Gulfport.
Funding for substantial improvements to New York's Penn Station; construction of a new border crossing between Port Huron, Michigan, and Canada; several light rail projects; the first multi-modal bridge in Tulsa; and a new divided freeway in Spokane was also approved through the grants.
Forty-two percent of the TIGER grants went directly to cities, metropolitan organizations and other entities. Overall, the competitive grant program received more than 1,400 applications from all 50 states and the U.S. territories for more than $56 billion worth of projects. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced the grant awards today in Kansas City, Mo.
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) is the "Voice of Transportation" representing State Departments of Transportation in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. AASHTO is a nonprofit, nonpartisan association serving as a catalyst for excellence in transportation.
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