Transit
TIGER III to come this summer
The Metropolitan Washington Transportation Planning Board reported Wednesday that there will be a third round of the federal government's TIGER transportation grant program.
Photo by iyoupapa on Flickr.
The popular and extremely competitive grants can be used for almost any transportation idea, provided applicants make the case that their projects deserve funding.
The recently-passed federal budget deal includes $528 million for a new installment of the program, which is expected to be announced formally along with a solicitation for applications some time in early summer. Submissions would most likely be due in late summer, with funding decisions probably coming in winter.
It's expected that the new program will very closely mirror last year's $600 million version, including the 80-20 federal-local match requirement and the merit-based project scoring. One expected difference will be that the new program may exclude planning and design projects in order to focus exclusively on construction and implementation.
The Washington region was awarded a grant for bus improvements in round one, and applied for but didn't receive a grant for bikesharing in round two. However, the TIGER II bikesharing application was apparently one of the highest-scoring nationally not to receive funding, so it might be prudent to simply try the same thing again.
In any event, this will be a major program to watch. The TPB will almost certainly put forth a regional application, and most of the local jurisdictions will probably apply for projects separately as well.
Cross-posted at BeyondDC.
 | Dan Malouff is a professional transportation planner for the Arlington County Department of Transportation. He has a degree in Urban Planning from the University of Colorado, and lives a car-free lifestyle in Northwest Washington. His posts are his own opinions and do not represent the views of his employer in any way. He runs the blog BeyondDC and also contributes to the Washington Post Local Opinions blog.   |
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by Shipsa01 on Apr 21, 2011 11:21 am
http://democrats.transportation.house.gov/sites/democrats.transportation.house.gov/files/H.R.%201,%20T%26I%20Funding%20Cuts.pdf
by No more GO(B)P on Apr 21, 2011 11:27 am
Can we consider the Crystal City "pod" a success? About 21,000 rides. Compare that to E-O-T-R -- less than 800.
Reworking the plan so Arlington, DC and Bethesda get more bikes might work -- but takes away from the regional approach. Putting bikes in Reston, Falls Church, PG County etc is a waste.
by charlie on Apr 21, 2011 11:32 am
The proposed plan would nearly double the number of DC stations (allowing for both significant density increases in the core and adding new neighborhoods) and triple the number of Arlington Stations, with small (Crystal City-sized) grants to start things up in Bethesda, Silver Spring and Alexandria, which are within easy connectivity distance to existing/planned stations in DC/Arlington.
While it also includes small numbers of bikes (~100 each) for College Park and Reston, I think the relative lack of connectivity between those sites and the larger system would be offset to a large degree by the extra clout the grant gets from adding the support of more municipalities.
by Jacques on Apr 21, 2011 11:51 am
Thanks for sharing the good news. How did you hear that our Tiger II bike sharing application scored so highly?
by MDE on Apr 21, 2011 11:55 am
Looking at the linked files, we are talking about $12M in Tiger money.
A few ideas: link it more to Pentagon/BRAC moves, and find ways to identify new corridors.
by charlie on Apr 21, 2011 12:40 pm
by Tom Coumaris on Apr 21, 2011 1:44 pm
I'm generally opposed to these grants...a little here, a little there. I'd rather see it all go to a big project that can serve as a model and bellweather for other projects around the country. A similar and disastrous approach was used when allocating stimulus money in 2009.
by MJ on Apr 21, 2011 2:17 pm
I'm pretty sure the red line in Baltimore would be funded under the New Starts program, as large fixed-rail transit projects usually are.
by Ben on Apr 21, 2011 2:17 pm
Why would you call previous TIGER programs "disastrous"? Most people would call them extremely successful.
by MLD on Apr 21, 2011 2:31 pm
by anne on Apr 21, 2011 2:50 pm
by Jared on Apr 21, 2011 8:51 pm
You watch it with the tingling on the streetcar seats!
by Mister Goat on Apr 21, 2011 11:50 pm
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