Federal Highway Deputy Administrator Greg Nadeau and South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds recently broke ground on the U.S. 18 highway reconstruction and improvement project in Oglala and Pine Ridge, S.D. The project had received a $10 million Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grant and is the first TIGER grant project in the nation to break ground.
The TIGER grant program, a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, is a competitive grants program to promote innovative multimodal and multijurisdictional transportation projects that provide significant economic and environmental benefits to an entire metropolitan area, region or the nation.
The project involves the reconstruction of a 15.6-mile segment of road with deteriorated pavement and no shoulders. The funding will be used for rumble strips, resurfacing, shoulder widening, better lighting, additional sidewalks and other measures to make the road safer for drivers and pedestrians. “A safer road will improve the quality of life for the rural communities of Oglala and Pine Ridge,” Nadeau says.
The $10 million Recovery Act grant goes toward the total project cost of $28.6 million. USDOT announced the selection of $1.5 billion worth of TIGER grants for 51 projects as part of the one-year anniversary of the Recovery Act on Feb. 17.
