U.S. Transportation Secretary Foxx Announces $10 Million TIGER Grant for Multimodal Access Project in Oklahoma
Demand Demonstrates Need for Greater Transportation Investment through GROW AMERICA Act
TULSA, Okla. – U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx today announced a $10 million TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grant to the City of Tulsa, Okla., for the Riverside Drive-Gathering Place Multimodal Access Project. The project is one of 72 federally-funded transportation projects in 46 states and the District of Columbia that will receive a total of nearly $600 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s discretionary grant program. Deputy Secretary Victor Mendez traveled to Tulsa for the local announcement.
“As uncertainty about the future of long-term federal funding continues, this round of TIGER will be a shot in the arm for these innovative, job-creating and quality of life-enhancing projects,” said Secretary Foxx. “The grant we’re announcing today will help revitalize the Arkansas Riverfront – while improving a commuter route into the city’s central business district. For every project we select, however, we must turn dozens more away – projects that could be getting done if Congress passed the GROW AMERICA Act, which would double the funding available for TIGER and growing the number of projects we could support.”
The project’s TIGER grant will help the $38.6 million effort move forward, enabling local officials to replace an obsolete bridge over Crow Creek, and improve the connection of a regionally significant roadway to the Gathering Place, a 75-acre recreational park and natural area which will open in 2017. The existing roadway adjacent to the park site, which carries 26,400 vehicles daily, experiences routine flooding due to poor drainage and lacks safe pedestrian and bicycle crossings to the waterfront area.
“TIGER grants are an important part of helping America’s roads and bridges keep pace with the demands of the traveling public,” said Deputy Secretary Victor Mendez. “They are a good start, but they are no substitute for the GROW AMERICA Act’s promise of long-term U.S. infrastructure investment.”
The GROW AMERICA Act, the administration’s surface transportation reauthorization proposal, would authorize $5 billion over four years for much-needed additional TIGER funding to help meet the overwhelming demand for significant infrastructure investments around the country and provide the certainty that states and local governments need to properly plan for investment. The $302 billion, four-year transportation reauthorization proposal would provide increased and stable funding for the nation’s highways, bridges, transit and rail systems without contributing to the deficit. The GROW AMERICA Act also includes several critical program reforms to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of federal highway, rail and transit programs.
The Department received 797 eligible applications from 49 states, U.S. territories and the District of Columbia, an increase from the 585 applications received in 2013. Overall, applicants requested 15 times the $600 million available for the program, or $9.5 billion for needed transportation projects.
Since 2009, the TIGER program has provided nearly $4.1 billion to 342 projects in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Demand for the program has been overwhelming, and during the previous five rounds, the Department of Transportation received more than 6,000 applications requesting more than $124 billion for transportation projects across the country. Congress provided the most recent funding as part of the bipartisan Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014, signed by President Obama on January 17, 2014.
Click here for additional information on individual TIGER grants.
Click here for additional information on the Department of Transportation’s 2014 TIGER Program.
Click here for additional information on the GROW AMERICA Act.
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DOT 84-14