Rural communities get help submitting TIGER III grants

Smart Growth America (SGA) and Charlier & Associates are helping five rural communities to submit TIGER III grants on October 31. The program is being funded in part by the Rockefeller Foundation.

Three of the communities — Red Lodge, and Lewiston, Montana, and the Smith River Rancheria native American tribe on the northern coast of California — are submitting “complete streets” projects.

Red Lodge, with a population of 2,177, has a “classic American Main Street” that is now a state highway. “The plan is to add three-dimensional depth to downtown and improve cross streets,” says Roger Millar of SGA, who is based in Montana. Similarly, the proposal is to make Lewiston’s main street, bisected by a highway, more walkable and bikable. The Smith River community, which straddles US Route 101, is proposed for a similar makeover.

An intermodal center is planned for Wiscasset, Maine, near the terminus of the Northeast Amtrak line. The proposal for Belfast, Maine, calls for a pedestrian connection from the harbor to downtown.

The idea for the program came from requests from rural communities that want to compete for TIGER grants but lack the planning,

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