USDOT awards $118m in TIGER grants for nine freight projects

The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) will allocate almost $500 million to 41 road, transit, maritime and rail projects under the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program.    The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has awarded nearly $500 million in funding for 41 road, transit, maritime and rail projects under the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program, the department said in a statement.
   Of those 41 projects, nine are specifically related to freight infrastructure improvements.
   Freight-specific projects garnered roughly 24 percent ($118 million) of the $500 million in total funds awarded, but several other road and bridge projects are also expected to have a positive impact on cargo movements.
   Since its inception under President Obama in 2009, the TIGER grant program has awarded $5.6 billion  for capital investments in surface transportation infrastructure over nine rounds of competitive grants, according to USDOT.
   The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2017 set aside $500 million in funding for TIGER grants to remain available through Sept. 30, 2020, but President Donald Trump’s initial fiscal 2018 budget proposal, released more than a year ago, would slash overall USDOT funding 13 percent from 2017 levels and completely eliminate the TIGER grant program if adopted.
   Congress has yet to pass an official 2018 budget, so the future of the program remains unclear, but the House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee in July 2017 approved a proposed fiscal year 2018 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development funding bill that would also do away with the TIGER grants.
   Kurt Nagle, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA), said in a statement the association was “disappointed” more port related infrastructure projects were not included in this TIGER round, noting that port-related projects received a total of $72.7 million, about 14.5 percent of the $500 million in available funding.
   “TIGER grants are one of the few federal funding programs available to public port authorities to help them pay for critical infrastructure to move and handle freight more efficiently,” said Nagle.
   “Projects that aid the movement of goods through America’s ports should be a high priority for these federal grants, and port-related projects should be among the leading candidates,” he added. “It’s also important that projects from the full range of port sizes and types receive grant awards in any future rounds of TIGER funding.”
   The freight-related projects selected for this round of TIGER grant funding include:
     • $12.7 million to the Alabama State Port Authority for the Southeast Automotive Gateway project, which entails the conversion of an abandoned bulk cargo handling facility at the Port of Mobile into a roll-on/roll-off (ro-ro) automobile processing facility;
     • $20 million to Baltimore County, Md., for the Mid-Atlantic Multi-Modal Transportation Hub project, which includes building new cargo-handling facilities at the Sparrows Point industrial facility in East Baltimore as part of a larger investment program to repurpose a former steel manufacturing site with marine service into a multimodal logistics hub;
     • $19.9 million to the North Carolina Department of Transportation for the Blue Ridge Road Grade Separation and Intersection Improvements, which will eliminate an at-grade crossing by lowering the Blue Ridge Road from its existing grade to pass under the North Carolina Railroad (NCRR) right-of-way;
     • $8 million to Mill City, Ore., for the Mill City Downtown Restoration and Revitalization Project, which includes repairing and renovating the North Santiam River Bridge, a rural major collector on a designated freight route near Mill City;
     • $8.5 million to the City of Fort Smith, Ark., for the Securing Multimodal Freight Corridors in the Ozarks, which comprises the repair and rehabilitation of three rail bridges that cross Clear Creek and the Arkansas River;
     • $10 million to the Indiana Department of Transportation for the Wabash River Rail Bridge Infrastructure Revitalization, which entails replacing two deteriorating freight rail approaches to the Wabash River Bridge, which serves as a rail link between energy and agricultural suppliers in Illinois and river ports in Mt. Vernon, Ind.;
     • $13 million to the St. Bernard Port, Harbor and Terminal District in Louisiana for the Reconstruction of the Chalmette Slip Project, which will rehabilitate the last two original wharf sections of the port (A and F), which have been maintained but have exceeded their useful lives over the past 110 years;
     • $16 million to Colfax County, N.M., for the Southwest Chief Route Stabilization Project, which will replace 60-year old bolted rail, associated turnouts and crossings for a net gain of 42 miles of Class 4 rail line in the La Junta subdivision between Hutchinson, Kan., and Las Animas, Colo.;
     • And $9.9 million to the Oklahoma Department of Transportation for the High Plains Strategic Freight Rail Capacity Improvement Project, which seeks to implement a program of improvements to a Class III regional freight network to accommodate unit trains of loaded 286,000-pound railcars and increase operating speeds.