PRESS RELEASEFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: July 14, 2023
Contact: Stanton Lambert,
Executive Director, Wabash River Enhancement Corporation (WREC),(765) 420–8505 / slambert@wabashriver.net

Wabash River Greenway receives $25 million RAISE Grant Award
Award generates funds needed to complete Phase 2 of the Wabash River GreenwayDevelopment Project

Lafayette, Indiana. The U.S. Department of Transportation awarded Tippecanoe County a$25 million U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) 2023 RAISE Grant for the Wabash
River Greenway Project (WRG). The award will fund completion of Phase Two of the Wabash
River Greenway Project, which will develop the N 9th Street – North River Road Section of theWRG, including a new Bike/Pedestrian Bridge across the Wabash River.
“WREC and our community partners are excited to learn of our project’s award! This is thelargest of several recent successes that have marked the beginning of the active
development phase of the Wabash River Greenway. An award of this magnitude from theUSDOT reinforces the need for, and importance of, active transportation infrastructure andits accompanying health, economic, and recreational benefits to our community locally,within our region, and the State, said Stanton Lambert, Executive Director of the Wabash
River Enhancement Corporation.
WREC partnered with Tippecanoe County, the City of Lafayette, City of West Lafayette, andthe Tippecanoe County Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) to apply for the grant, withthe MPO serving as the formal applicant.
The grant program allows for completion of the project by 2032. with a five-year estimatedtimeline for completion. An additional $1.4 million is needed to complete the project and will
be secured from existing local funding sources.
The grant project will:- Complete safety and ADA improvements on the existing North 9 th Street Trail in Lafayette,including new park n’ ride spaces and bus stop connections.
- Extend a new connector trail from the south end of N 9 th Street Trail west to the newWabash River Bike/Pedestrian Bridge.
- Construct a new Wabash River Bike/Pedestrian Bridge.
- Construct new side path including sections of Boardwalk along the east side of North River
Road from Mascoutin Park in West Lafayette to Tecumseh Trails County Park.
- Construct a new Trail Bridge connecting Tecumseh Trails County Park to TippecanoeCounty Amphitheater Park and a new trail from the bridge to the Amphitheater Park parking
lot.

Phase One of the Project consists of six WRG pilot projects submitted as a part of theGreater Lafayette Commerce, READI (State of Indiana -Regional Economic, Acceleration, andDevelopment Initiative) Grant Project; two State of IN Next Level Trails grant projects(WREC/City of Lafayette Sagamore Parkway Connector Trail and Friends of Panhandle Trail
Extension to the WRG), and the City of West Lafayette/MPO Sagamore Parkway Connector
Trail Project. These projects are funded and underway.
The Wabash River Greenway extends through a five county, 90 river mile section of theWabash River corridor in Fountain, Warren, Tippecanoe, Carroll, and Cass counties withresource amenity corridors planned utilizing tributaries, existing/new trails, and, orroad/utility ROW corridors to extend out from the Greenway to connect five adjacentcounties of Pulaski, White, Benton, Montgomery, and Clinton counties to the WRG.
The Wabash River Greenway/Corridor Enhancement Project began in 2004, growing out of
the Greater Lafayette Vision 2020 comprehensive visioning initiative which identified
enhancement of the Wabash River corridor as the top multi-jurisdictional community
development priority facing Greater Lafayette. Three local governments - the City ofLafayette, City of West Lafayette, and Tippecanoe County, and Purdue University formed theWabash River Enhancement Corporation - a 501c3 nonprofit agency, to serve as the pointagency for planning and implementing enhancement of the Wabash River corridor inTippecanoe County, with a long-range mission to work on corridor enhancement in a fourcounty region including Fountain, Warren, and Carroll counties. Cass County was added tothe long-range mission during the development of the five county Wabash River GreenwayMaster Plan in 2022. The regional plan was funded by North Central Health Services and theWabash Heartland Innovation Network (WHIN), a Lilly Foundation funded regional economic
development initiative. WREC has completed comprehensive planning, strategic landacquisition, environmental assessment, and remediation projects on corridor properties asneeded, and initiated an ongoing effort to improve Wabash River water quality through its
multi-county Region of the Great Bend Watershed Management Program as part of its
efforts to enhance the Wabash River corridor and develop the Wabash River Greenway.
WREC’s first riverfront development project was completed in 2020 when the Riverside
Promenade, an elevated walkway in downtown Lafayette opened.
The USDOT’s Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity, or RAISE
Discretionary Grant program, provides a unique opportunity for the USDOT to invest in road,rail, transit, active transportation infrastructure, and port projects that promise to achieve
national objectives. Previously known as the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage
Development (BUILD) and Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery(TIGER) Discretionary Grants, Congress has dedicated nearly $14.3 billion for fifteen roundsof National Infrastructure Investments to fund projects that have a significant local orregional impact. In each competition, DOT receives hundreds of applications to build andrepair critical pieces of our freight and passenger transportation networks. The RAISE
program enables USDOT to examine these projects on their merits to help ensure that
taxpayers are getting the highest value for every dollar invested. Overall, during the 15-year
span of the highly competitive program, the US Department of Transportation has received
more than 12,466 applications requesting more than $213 billion for transportation
projects across the country.