The City of Washougal is requesting $50 million from a federal grant program to help fund its proposed 32nd Street underpass project.
On Sept. 26, the Washougal City Council approved a resolution authorizing Washougal City Manager David Scott to submit an application seeking $50,600,000 from the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT)’s new Railroad Crossing Elimination (RCE) Grant Program, which provides funding for highway-rail or pathway-rail grade crossing improvement projects that focus on improving the safety and mobility of people and goods.
If the city is successful in its bid for the $50 million grant, Washougal would use the money to design and construct an underpass at the railroad crossing on 32nd Street, from Main and “B” streets to “F” Place.
Scott said the Railroad Crossing Elimination program is “geared specifically toward projects” like Washougal’s planned 32nd Street underpass.
The city of Washougal recently received a $5 million grant from the Washington State Department of Transportation and $300,000 from Washington state’s 2021-23 transportation budget to help fund the underpass project. City officials have already pledged to use up to $4.82 million of local funds for the project, which will provide improved access to the Port of Camas-Washougal and the city’s town center, a grade-separated railroad crossing at 32nd Street, new connector streets and road improvements within the Port’s industrial park. “Having spent the better part of my career doing public works projects in and around, and under and over railroads, when I first learned of this project about five or six years ago, I thought, ‘Oh, that will never happen,’ because getting funding for such a project is so difficult,” Councilwoman Janice Killion said during the Council’s Sept. 26 meeting. “I know we don’t have (the grant) yet, but I’m so exceptionally excited to hear about this.”