Breaking: Sound Transit gets $10 Million for South 200th

Sound Transit announced earlier today that they received $10 Million from the incredibly competitive TIGER III USDOT grant to go towards the South 200th light rail extension project.

King County Councilmember Julia Patterson pointed out in an email yesterday that "the US Department of Transportation received 828 applications that totaled $14.1 billion dollars. Of that, DOT only awarded $527 million dollars in grants. That means that the S. 200th project stood out against applications from throughout the nation."

This is great news for transit riders and advocates across the Puget Sound. It will build an important access point into the light rail system. This grant will allow Sound Transit to accelerate the project delivery and open the South 200th Station in 2016, in conjunction with the University Link expansion opening. With important regional trail and bus connections and additional parking capacity and TOD potential, this station will increase access to the light rail system for thousands of potential transit riders in South King County and beyond.

In the press release Senator Murray was quoted by saying “This is great news for local commuters, communities, and the economy throughout Seattle.I was proud to create the TIGER program to fund investments like this one for Sound Transit that put people to work, boost the local economy, and lay down a strong foundation for long-term economic growth.”

Transportation Choices was a strong advocate for the South 200th street extension's TIGER application. We sent a letter of support and did a video testimony in support of this project. Today's announcement is simply great news for Sound Transit and transit riders alike.

In other news, WSDOT also received TIGER III funding for traffic mitigation work in the JLBM area of I-5, one of the most congested areas in the state.  This project (scroll down) will install smart traffic management technology in this area and HOV lanes on the on-ramps, among other things. This grant is also good news that will help mitigate traffic in a very congested corridor. Hopefully, eventually HOV lanes will be installed throughout this segment of I-5 to improve transit and carpool mobility, but this is a great start.