On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg announced that the Biden-Harris administration has awarded three Tennessee infrastructure projects a total of $64 million from the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) program.
Today, we announced the biggest investment in communities in the history of the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) program. https://t.co/Rrhe9S1iPp #RAISEGrants pic.twitter.com/H1b7UaBhyH
— U.S. Department of Transportation (@USDOT) August 11, 2022
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, the RAISE program was made “to help urban and rural communities move forward on projects that modernize roads, bridges, transit, rail, ports, and intermodal transportation and make our transportation systems safer, more accessible, more affordable, and more sustainable.”
One of the projects, receiving $23.4 million in funding in the Volunteer State, is in the city of Morristown, called the “Complete Streets and Its Traffic Signal Coordination Project.” The project will narrow the roadway from four to three lanes, add sidewalks, multi-use path, landscaping, lighting, signage on SR343/ S. Cumberland St.; as well as updating approximately 13 traffic signals through ITS Traffic Signal Coordination.
The second project, receiving $25 million in funding in the state, is in the city of Chattanooga, called “The Wilcox Boulevard Bridge – River to Ridge Mobility Project.” The project will replace the Wilcox Boulevard bridge, and will construct a 12.5-foot multi-use path on the southern edge of the project.
One of the projects I'm most proud to have worked on is the replacement of the Wilcox Blvd Bridge. Today, @MayorTimKelly announced that, thanks to @POTUS and @SecretaryPete, @USDOT has awarded Chattanooga $25M to build a new bridge that connects East Chattanooga to our riverwalk!
— Joda Thongnopnua (@JodaThongnopnua) August 12, 2022
The third project, receiving $14.6 million in funding, is in the city of Dunlap, called the “U.S. Highway 127 Corridor Optimization.” The project will re-engineer the intersection of U.S. Highway 127, redesign right-of-way to include bicycle lanes and ADA-compliant pathways as well as vehicle lanes, stormwater runoff management, new curb and curb cuts, a new network of pedestrian walks, crossing points, pedestrian bridges and amenities, ITS infrastructure, and wireless broadband throughout the corridor.
Nationwide, the U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded a total of $2.2 billion in funding for infrastructure projects through the RAISE program so far.
Projects were evaluated on several criteria, including safety, environmental sustainability, quality of life, economic competitiveness and opportunity, partnership and collaboration, innovation, state of good repair, and mobility and community connectivity, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
Photo “Morristown, Tennessee” by AppalachianCentrist. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Where to begin. What a complete pile of horse pocky disguised as Rebuilding our infrastructure. The idea is to tear down what was quite useful so they can replace it with so-call sustainable building. But it is not sustainable, it is not practical, and it is not helping anyone except the public/private partnerships doing the “work”. This is redistributing middle-class wealth (through taxes) to wipe out the middle class. Right now our state, our country, are on the brink of food shortages never before envisioned. Our real infrastructure has been ignored for years — deliberately. Money has been thrown at all sorts of inane projects to distract us from the real tearing down of Tennessee and America. Wake up, America, before it is too late.
Not to mention the fact that these “infrastructure” projects are all about expanding the surveillance grid. Track and monitor, track and monitor…
Agreed! But even worse than it being a waste is the fact that it comes with STRINGS. Grants
and other Federal money always do. It is one way they hope to gain more control over each state since the Constitution doesn’t give that authority.
Reject these projects and let us live within our means in TN WITHOUT federal monies! It is a noose to hang ourselves.
Bravo!
What a waste of money! There are more important projects that could impact many more people.
This is all part of UN Agenda 21 to get people out of their cars. There is no war against fossil fuels. The war is against human mobility. People better wake up. Federal money enslaves us. Complete Streets is UN Agenda 21 talk. BTW..,Chattanooga was one of the Beta sites for UN Agenda 21.
I would like to speak to someone at the TN star about the necessity to spend the money on the Napier community which is falling down around those folks. The MDHA project was canceled due to lack of funding. These type of projects yet don’t see a problem.
I spend hours with a non profit helping a mother of 8 who could not get MDHA to come fix a stopped up drain. This is what you should do a story on.
Lots of wasted money to accommodate a few bikers. What a boondoogle. I hope that the Chinese (our arch enemy) enjoys collecting interest on the money we have to borrow for these watered down projects.