Washington Farmers Win Big With Year’s Largest Federal Competitive INFRA Grant, Say Cantwell, Buttigieg
grown tree fruit will reach buyers faster thanks to $92M grant for Wenatchee’s Apple Capital Loop
WENATCHEE – A new transportation project will help speed deliveries of Washington state agricultural products across the state to local, national, and international markets.
Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) joined U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and other elected officials today to tout the benefits of Wenatchee’s transformative Apple Capital Loop Project.
“We’re really here for the over 60,000 [apple related] jobs and over 100,000 jobs with the whole tree fruit industry,” said Sen. Cantwell “And we're here to make sure that multibillion dollar industry remains competitive, and to do that we needed to improve the infrastructure. There is an average of something like 4,000 trucks that go through this area a day … it's so important that we continue to make these improvements.”
“In an average year, a billion dollars worth of apples are stored, delivered, and packed in Wenatchee Valley,” said Secretary Buttigieg. “But that work being done by farmers, by pickers, by packers, by truckers, by rail workers -- by everybody across that chain allows Americans to enjoy that produce all year long.”
The project received a $92 million federal grant from the Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (INFRA) program, which was imagined, developed, and pushed through Congress by Sen. Cantwell in 2015. Wenatchee’s grant is the largest INFRA grant awarded in the nation in 2021, and the largest INFRA grant ever awarded in Washington state.
Agricultural products that travel through Wenatchee on US 2, or that are delivered to and packaged in Wenatchee, will get to their destinations faster. Among other improvements, the project adds a new bridge over the Wenatchee River, allowing freight trucks to bypass Downtown Wenatchee traffic. And the traffic-halting stoplight on US 2 will be replaced by a roundabout.
Railroad crossings and stoplights will also be improved. Overall, the project will increase the traffic capacity of the Loop by about 60,000 vehicles per day, saving freight and motorists 32 million hours over the next 20 years – that’s 4,000 fewer hours spent in traffic, every day, for the next two decades.
Once completed, the Apple Capital Loop will also significantly improve wildfire safety for the region by adding two new evacuation routes out of Wenatchee.
The Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (INFRA) grant program, created by Senator Cantwell in the FAST Act of 2015, provides financial support to nationally and regionally significant freight and highway projects.
Noted Secretary Buttigieg: “The INFRA program, the entire thing was largely possible with design by Senator Cantwell, who is also Chair [of the Commerce Committee] that plays such an important role in shaping and crafting and then driving legislation that makes everything we do possible.”
President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law allocated $8 billion to the INFRA Grant Program, which increases the program’s funding by 78%. Since the program’s creation in 2015, the State of Washington has been awarded over $243.8 million in INFRA grants.
A livestream of the event is available HERE.
Photos of the event are available HERE.
A transcript of Senator Cantwell’s and Secretary Buttigieg’s remarks is available HERE.
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