TIGER II

A six-county region of Pennsylvania (Blair, Centre, Lycoming, Montour, Northumberland, and Union) is experiencing significant transportation needs associated with meeting the demands of the growth of the Marcellus Shale industry. To support the burgeoning industry, sand, pipes, chemicals, and other supplies must be transported into the region, thus increasing the demands on the current infrastructure. The SEDA COG Joint Rail Authority (JRA) and Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, need to facilitate regional infrastructure improvements to support the demands of the new industry and also support existing businesses that utilize the infrastructure. To succeed with this multimodal (regional rail, highways, bike paths, and air) project, the SEDA COG JRA and Lycoming County needed to secure funding and looked to secure a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (US DOT) Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) II program. Funding from this nationally competitive grant program was awarded as a result of meeting merit-based evaluation criteria for projects that support critical transportation infrastructure.

Working with Lycoming County and the SEDA COG JRA, Delta prepared a comprehensive application and detailed benefit-cost analysis of the 18 project components. Delta also helped with building necessary community consensus and support for the project, through outreach to municipal and county officials, private companies, and elected and appointed state and federal officials. This resulted in a significant amount of public and private support for the projects from 82 different stakeholders.

As part of the application package, Delta defined the scopes of the 18 project components totaling $57 million, identified how the components met the evaluation criteria for the program, developed a conceptual funding strategy that took into account federal, state, local, and private funding, and identified and eliminated any funding gaps in the budget. Delta also worked with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, the state office in charge of rail and highway systems, to develop the funding strategy in order to leverage state investment in the project.

Delta worked with the SEDA COG JRA and Lycoming County to successfully secure a $10 million grant award from the US DOT’s TIGER II program. Their project was one of only 42 projects from across the nation to receive a TIGER II grant award. They will now leverage this funding along with the other public and private funds to proceed to the construction of these necessary transportation infrastructure improvements in the six-county region.