Feb
17
2010
ST. PAUL--The Minnesota AFL-CIO praised the US Department of Transportation as it awarded the Ramsey County Regional Railroad Authority with a $35 million grant that will renovate the city’s historic Union Depot, create jobs, spur economic growth and create a vibrant, multi-modal transportation center.
Shar Knutson, president of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, has been a strong advocate for this project.
"This is great news for St. Paul, the Twin Cities, and all of Minnesota," Knutson said. "Renovating the Union Depot creates family sustaining jobs and makes the east metro a key transit point in a larger rail network that will grow our economy."
One year to the day after President Obama signed the historic American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announced the TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) Discretionary Grants. This program was included in the Recovery Act to activate a national competition for innovative, multi-modal and multi-jurisdictional transportation projects.
The Union Depot project, coupled with passage of a jobs bill at the state level, will provide much needed jobs that will put purchasing power back in the pockets of working families.
"Getting the Union Depot project going is something I pushed hard for while heading the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation and continued to do at the Minnesota AFL-CIO," Knutson added. "Projects like these are a great step towards economic recovery forMinnesotans."