About that $813 Million…

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

There is much rejoicing in the transit blogosphere about the $813M federal grant to fund University Link. Just to put that in context, it’s worth noting that we’ve known about the grant for years. The first $100M installment came in July.

It was originally $700M, then became $750M, and I guess they’ve managed to wrangle an additional $63M on top of that, perhaps due to increased project costs, inflation, or simply increased need. It also received the FTA’s highest rating, and of course there’s the whole Patty Murray thing.

Anyway, U-link is a solid project, and it’s great that the numbers have been finalized, but the basic financial contours of the project remain about the same: $1.9B in total costs, about half of which will come from the Feds.