Feds fail to fund Detroit’s inspired TIGER project
Friday, December 16th, 2011
[Disclaimer: I provided assistance to the city of Detroit on this TIGER grant application.]
It wasn’t a good week in Detroit for transportation news.
First came the light rail decision, and now this. The U.S. DOT did not select Detroit’s TIGER III grant.
There were 828 application and only 46 were selected. The odds weren’t good but Detroit’s $20 million grant request was first-class.
It was called Link Detroit, a Multi-model enhancement plan and a copy of it is available on the city’s web site.
The listed project benefits were:
- Implements a $25 million infrastructure project that includes bridge replacements, streetscapes, on and off road non-motorized greenways ($20 million DOT grant, $5.8 million local match)
- Links Detroit’s core investments such as the Riverfront Conservancy and adjacent downtown central businesses through the Dequindre Cut and Midtown Loop greenways to the Eastern Market, Midtown and Hamtramck
- Intersects major transportation routes including auto, bus, and the planned Woodward Light Rail, enabling multi modal options from anywhere in the region
- Enhances non-motorized and multi-modal connections to:
- Jobs (downtown and midtown anchors, locally owned commercial/professional services, start up establishments, hotels and restaurants, eastern market district)
- Educational institutions (Wayne State)
- Cultural institutions (DIA, MOCAD, DSO, theatres)
- Recreational opportunities (Milliken State Park, numerous city parks, marinas)
- Famers market (Eastern Market)
- Neighborhoods (Midtown, Hamtramck, East Villages)
- Leverages significant investments already made in the transportation infrastructure (Campus Martius, Detroit RiverWalk, Woodward Light Rail, Dequindre Cut Greenway, Midtown Loop Greenway, Hamtramck Greenway) and real estate development (Downtown, Midtown, Eastern Market)
- Provides 289 direct near term jobs, and up to 16,000 long term jobs, assuming the residential and commercial fill in development typically stimulated by this kind of investment
Can Detroit just reapply for TIGER IV? That’s uncertain.
Congress has asked that TIGER “focus on road, transit, rail and port projects.” One source says it’s not a ban on bike-ped oriented projects, but that future focus doesn’t help Link Detroit.
In addition, some of the matching funds will likely be spent before the next TIGER round, and therefore will become ineligible.
Detroit had received $25 million in the first round of TIGER grants. That money was to be spent on the Woodward light rail and will now be applied towards planning bus rapid transit. We don’t know what role this previous award and the city’s current financial situation had in this grant request cycle.
No Dequindre Cut Extension?
This does not stop the planned Dequindre Cut extension. The city has a purchase agreement for the private property from Gratiot to Mack and is now doing due diligence. The funding is there to keep moving this project forward.
Eventually the Midtown and Hamtramck connections will be built once the needed funding is found. TIGER III would have put these critical projects on the front burner.
Other Michigan TIGER grants
The only successful TIGER III grant was for $3.6 million to rebuild 2.6 miles of road in St. Clair County which “provides essential access to the County’s only landfill facility.” Yeah, that stinks.
That said, we’re not surprised the MDOT/Canton TIGER request was rejected. This was a $22 million project to improve the IKEA exit on I-275.
The required grant section on Livability appears to have been written in the 1980s or earlier. One claimed project benefit is it will improve the quality of life by having “a safer operational and connected network to and from the surrounding community and the freeway network.” That and they won’t remove the existing bike path.
The grant’s section on Alternative Transportation and Sustainable Development says, Canton is “committed to promoting sustainable development opportunities and alternative transportation options for residents.” Canton opted out of SMART. You cannot take the SMART bus to the IKEA store.
If anything, this is an example of why transportation in Michigan is not a sustainable model. We let a major traffic generator locate in an area which lacks the existing transportation infrastructure to handle it. And now Canton (and MDOT) want taxpayers to fix their $22 million mistake.
IKEA even mentioned in their support letter for this grant that “when IKEA was considering potential locations for our Michigan store, we had strong concerns about the interchange.”
But to be fair, there are other costly expressway exit examples, from the Chrysler headquarters to the Great Lakes Crossing at Baldwin. We have a history of funding mistakes.
The bottom line is Michigan can’t afford to keep ignoring the obvious relationship between land use and transportation.
From MDOT: