USDOT awards $3.25 million to three mobility focused Regional Infrastructure Accelerators

Five additional Regional Infrastructure Accelerators (RIA) have received funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation to accelerate the development and delivery of critical infrastructure projects. The five recipients will join five previous awarded RIA program recipients, which brings the program to 10 regions in the U.S.

The RIA program through the Build America Bureau was launched in December 2020 and is intended to be a bridge between the bureau and local stakeholders to expedite the delivery of transportation infrastructure projects through innovative finance and delivery methods.

Of the five recipients, three have a mobility focus and include:

• The Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA) will receive $750,000 for the LinkUS Mobility Initiative, which is a collaborative effort to enhance mobility options in central Ohio. This includes the development of high-capacity transit corridors, investments in smart mobility options such as first/mile last mile service and enhanced bus service with increased frequency.
• The Metropolitan Transportation Commission in California will receive $1.5 million for the Resilient SR 37 Program. The 20-mile corridor connects some of the Bay Area’s most affordable housing to jobs, but the low-lying corridor experiences chronic congestion and flooding challenges. A comprehensive effort led by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission aims to address those issues and improve connections to transit and rail options along the corridor. The highway traverses a rural area that is vital to both rural and disadvantaged communities in the Sonoma and Napa Counties.
• The third mobility-focused initiative to be accepted into the RIA program is the Midway Crossing Project in Suffolk County, N.Y. The county will receive $1 million to support its efforts to construct a multimodal transportation hub, including connections between air and rail service, in a mixed-use commercial development space. This will include a biotech/life science office complex, 300-room hotel and 300,000-square-foot convention center.

In addition to the three projects listed above, the Panhandle Regional Planning Commission in Texas received $454,842 and Dona Ana County, N.M., received $1.1 million to create the New Mexico TradePort.

The previous RIA grant recipients are: Fresno Council of Governments, Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, Cleveland, Ohio, San Diego Association of Governments, Pacific Northwest Economic Region, Seattle, Wash.. Each of the five RIAs signed cooperative agreements with the bureau earlier this year and have established workplans to bring their proposals to fruition.

“The new awards expand our geographic reach and increase the diversity of projects in the pipeline,” said Morteza Farajian, executive director, Build America Bureau. “We look forward to building on this program even more later this year with another round of available funding.”