Federal funds for sustainable development flow into Triad

Two streams of federal funding affecting the Piedmont Triad region were announced last week. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, awarded $3.2 million to two regional agencies in North Carolina, including $1.6 million to the Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation, or PART. According to a recent HUD press release, the Piedmont Triad plan “puts the focus on deteriorating neighborhoods and abandoned manufacturing areas to foster new development patterns along the region’s transportation corridors and near existing downtowns and employment centers.”

The Winston-Salem City Council has committed to acquiring Davis Garage to construct a multimodal transportation center. PART is developing long-range plans for an East-West Corridor that would link Hanes Mall in Winston-Salem to NC A&T University in Greensboro, including a possible commuter rail line.

The grants are part of the Obama administration’s Partnership for Sustainable Communities, which brings together HUD, the Environmental Protection Agency, the US Department of Agriculture and the US Department of Transportation “to ensure that the agencies’ policies, programs and funding consider affordable housing, transportation and environmental protection together” to get better results for communities and ensure that taxpayer money is used more efficiently, the press release states.

Meanwhile, Democratic Rep. Brad Miller announced that $8 million in federal recovery funds is estimated to create 710 jobs and generate $16.1 million in investment. About $2.3 million has been allocated to projects in the 13th Congressional District, represented by Miller, that stretches from Raleigh up along the Virginia state line and then dips into Alamance and Guilford counties. The projects fall under three categories: alternative fuels and technology, energy-efficient buildings and energy-efficient transportation. They range from a $125,000 grant to the city of Raleigh to install electric vehicle charging stations to a $150,000 grant to Box Board Products in Guilford County to replace the light bulbs in its facility with fluorescent bulbs and upgrade inefficient furnaces.