The TIGER Roars for Rail and Mass Transit

[RoyGBiv]

The TIGER Roars for Rail and Mass Transit

Many of the projects the federal Department of Transportation is financing through the long-awaited TIGER grants go a long way toward revamping our freight and commuter rail systems, rounding out a distinctly spectacular month for transit advocates.

The list of TIGER grant recipients (.pdf) represents a real change from the traditional transportation policy that favors the almighty automobile above all else. Oh sure, there are a lot of bridges and roads in the $1.5 billion Transportation Reinvestment Generating Economic Recovery spending plan, but they didn’t get a whole lot of money. Transit got roughly 26 percent according to Yonah Freemark at Transport Politic (who posted a nifty table) and rail got got about 62 percent.

In doling out the money to projects nominated by the states, the feds made it clear they wanted projects that encourage multimodal transit, connect various transportation networks and give customers more options. They also stressed livability, meaning how much the projects might improve the quality of life for the people they are meant to serve. Both factors are a huge shift away from how the government used to allocate money — by giving it to projects that widened highways and built new roads, encouraging people to keep on driving. . .

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/02/tiger-grants/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

[Vincardog]

1. Bout time

[jwirr]

2. That is the best news in a long time. Up here in NE MN we still have

much of our rails system because of the iron mines. Even the smaller parts of it are still there but need fixing.

[KonaKane]

3. Excellent! We have needed high speed rail here for decades

It's good to see there is some serious movement to making it a reality, finally.