On March 9, the US Department of Transportation announced the recipients for $500 million in discretionary grant funding for road, transit, maritime and rail projects in Round 9 of the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program
Of the total 41 projects awarded grants in this round, five are port-related, although only two out of 40 port applications submitted, are going to marine port authorities. Namely, port-related projects will receive a total of $72.7 million, amounting to 14.5%.
In TIGER’s first round, port-related infrastructure projects received about 8.6% percent of the original $1.5 billion allocated. In the next rounds, port-related infrastructure gathered 14.6% of the total $600 million in the second, 12.8% of the total $527 million in the third, 13.6% of the total $500 million in the fourth,13.3% of the total $474 million in the fifth, 12.4% of the total $600 million in the sixth, 9% of the total $500 million in the seventh, and 12.36% of the total $500 million in the eighth.
Kurt Nagle, AAPA’s president and CEO, said that direct funding for maritime infrastructure projects, will improve freight mobility which helps reduce transportation costs and makes US exports more attractive to overseas buyers.
The following five port-related projects were approved for discretionary grants:
- Baltimore County, Maryland will receive $20 million for the Mid-Atlantic Multi-Modal Transportation Hub to build state-of-the-art 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.
- The City of Burlington, Iowa will receive $17 million for its Downtown/Riverfront Revitalization Project to convert parts of Main and Jefferson streets into complete streets, constructing a linear multi-use path park, a new waterfront community gathering area and new parking lots, and installing new boat ramps and docking facilities for use by river cruise lines and recreational boaters.
- Louisiana’s St. Bernard Port, Harbor and Terminal District will receive $13 million to rehabilitate to modern design standards the last two original wharf sections, A and F, which have been maintained but have exceeded their useful lives over the past 110 years.
- The Alabama State Port Authority will receive $12.7 million for its Southeast Automotive Gateway. The project is to convert an abandoned bulk handling facility at the Port of Mobile into a roll-on/roll-off mobile vehicle processing facility.
- The Indiana Department of Transportation will receive $10 million for the Wabash River Rail Bridge Infrastructure Revitalization Project to replace two deteriorating freight rail approaches to the Wabash River Bridge. The bridge serves as a rail link from energy and agricultural suppliers of Illinois to river ports in Mt. Vernon, Indiana, part of the Ports of Indiana.
