WASHINGTON -
The District's Department of Transportation has just won a ten million dollar federal grant to help pay for an additional four miles of bike and pedestrian pathways along the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail. It's a proposed 20 mile route connecting the National Mall to Maryland. Twelve miles of the trail are already open.
"It's a very important element," says DDOT Director Terry Bellamy. "Because one of the ways we think that the region is going to continue to grow is not by automobile but by other modes of transportation and the trail gives us the opportunity to have a healthy community."
The Tiger grant, (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grant, are monies from the federal government, half a billion dollars in total this time, offered to all the states and the District of Columbia.
The feds will be paying for a new pathway along the Kenilworth Gardens Trail - behind the Pepco plant off Benning Road near the old D.C. landfill. The trail is designed to connect 16 waterfront neighborhoods to the Anacostia River and places like the Washington Navy Yard.
"We could stand for an improvement," says bicyclist David Patterson. "I'm all for it myself. If that would be the situation. If that's what D.C. wants I'm behind it 100 percent."
The Anacostia bike and pedestrian path is just one of 47 infrastructure improvement projects in 34 states and the District of Columbia being funded by federal grants administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Secretary Ray LaHood making the announcement in a telephone conference this morning, "These projects create good jobs today and build a stronger American economy for tomorrow," LaHood says.
District transportation officials say they'll be competing for the next round of Tiger grants - another 500 million dollars for infrastructure improvements.
