DOT Awards $140 Million in Transport Grants

Funding goes to 36 states under regular program for road, rail and transit projects

The Department of Transportation said it released another $140 million this week for construction projects, but it was regular grants rather than Recovery Act funds.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the grant money would aid 249 construction projects in 36 states, under the Transportation, Community, and System Preservation program for project aid to states, local government and tribal authorities.

 

They range from a hurricane evacuation corridor study in Alabama, to a highway-rail grade separation project in California, work on several interstate highways in Arkansas and high-speed maglev rail development program in Pennsylvania. A number of road resurfacing projects and bridge replacements are included around the country.

 

TCSP was created in 1998, and with this release of 2009 funds it will have spent nearly $800 million.

The grants were authorized under the multi-year highway bill known as SAFETEA-LU. DOT said they are intended to help “improve national transportation efficiency, reduce environmental impacts of transportation and improve the cost-effectiveness of infrastructure investment.”

 

TCSP is run by the Federal Highway Administration, but makes the grants in conjunction with other DOT agencies -- the Federal Transit Administration, the Federal Rail Administration and the Research and Innovative Technology Administration – plus the Environmental Protection Agency.

 

A spokesman said the grant applications had come in last fall, would have normally been released about this time and were not linked to the stimulus projects. Still, LaHood said that “given the demands on the nation’s transportation system, these grants will be a vital help to communities across the country.”

Projects covered in the latest funding release include widening U.S. Highway 17 in Putnam County, Fla., to replacing a bridge at Rulo, Neb., near the Kansas-Missouri state line, on U.S. 159.

 

A TCSP Web site says it funding can go for planning grants, implementation grants and research to address relationships between transportation and communities. Its goals include assuring efficient access to jobs and planning transportation in ways that reduces the need for heavy future public infrastructure spending.

 

 

(Source: Journal of Commerce)