Officials take second swing at grant money for highway project

Four months after losing out on key federal grant money for widening the Highway 101/Highway 23 interchange, officials from Ventura County are trying again.

Thousand Oaks and county transportation officials plan to submit a grant application for $19.5million by the end of the week, said Jay Spurgin, Thousand Oaks' public works director.

Spurgin traveled with others from the city and the Ventura County Transportation Commission to Washington, D.C., last week. They met with California congressional staff members and senior representatives from the Transportation Department, which administers the TIGER IV grant. TIGER is an acronym for Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery.

"We got some fairly focused input on our project and on our application, and it was very appreciated," Spurgin said. "I think we are going to have that much better of an application."

Officials made a similar trip last year to lobby for a $19.5 million TIGER III grant. Competition for a piece of the $527 million pot of discretionary money was stiff 828 applications were submitted for a total of more than $14billion requested.

This year's pool of TIGER money is $500 million, and some has been set aside for high-speed rail projects.

To increase their chances of securing half the funding for the $40 million widening project, local officials added traffic meters and lights on the on-ramps. The additions are called transportation system management technology, an attractive feature in highway projects.

Darren Kettle, the transportation commission's executive director, said the group planned to present an economic analysis showing the benefits of the widening project.

Based on feedback from the Transportation Department, the grant application likely will emphasize the millions of dollars worth of Highway 101 projects that have been built in the past decade while making the case the proposed widening would be the culmination of thatwork.

"This will benefit all those other projects that are diminished because they bottleneck down here," Spurgin said. "I think that's an important story to tell about why this project is special and why we should be given this TIGER money."

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Officials take second swing at grant money for highway project