The Champaign Urbana Mass Transit District (CUMTD), in partnership with the University of Illinois, the City of Urbana, and the City of Champaign, is submitting a Federal Department of Transportation TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) Grant application, requesting $13,391,888 in funding to complete important mobility investments in the University District.
The CUMTD TIGER grant application focuses on the expansion of key corridors within the core University District to improve transit, pedestrian, and bike mobility by creating “complete streets” for safer travel while discouraging single occupant vehicle travel and reducing environmental degradation. The grant funding will create the necessary mobility infrastructure that will encourage more development and redevelopment within the University District and in between the downtown areas of Champaign and Urbana.
For Champaign, the Grant focuses on improvements for White Street (Second Street to Wright Street), Green Street (Fourth Street to Neil Street), and Wright Street (Armory Avenue to Springfield Avenue). The Grant identifies Champaign’s current budget funding for Green Street and White Street, totaling $10,439,087, and applies those funds as a local match for the Grant. In all, the partners are committing $16,308,412 as local match and requesting TIGER funding in the amount of $13,391,888.
For the 2013 TIGER Grant, the Federal Department of Transportation is authorized to award $473,847 million in TIGER Discretionary Funds. As with previous rounds of TIGER funding, FY 2013 TIGER funds are to be awarded on a competitive basis for projects that will have significant impact on the Nation, a metropolitan area, or a region. Each project awarded is multi-modal, multi-jurisdictional, or otherwise challenging to fund through existing programs. The TIGER program enables the Federal Department of Transportation to use a rigorous process to select project with exceptional benefits, explore ways to deliver projects faster and save on construction costs, make investments in the Nation’s infrastructure that make communities more livable and sustainable. For more information on the TIGER program, please visit www.dot.gov/tiger