BEND, OR -- Bend officials will soon start designing a new Reed Market Road bridge over the railroad. "This is a huge project," says Garrett Sabourin, with the city’s Engineering Department.

Early work got a big financial boost Monday, with the award of a more than $1 million grant from U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration. Sabourin says it will help pay for early work, "Just preliminary engineering and environmental clearances. So, it’s basically going through about a 30% design," he tells KBND News, "And our intent with this grant is that we’re successful with delivering this portion of the project to the obligations that the federal government expects, and then we would apply for additional funding for those future phases and see if we’re successful again." Sabourin estimates the overcrossing will cost around $25 million overall, and it's part of a larger $36 million dollar Reed Market Road Corridor improvement project, identified as a top priority in Bend’s Transportation System plan. City funding for the work will come from the 2011 GO Bond. 

The grant is from a first-ever grant to reduce train-vehicle collisions, included in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Sabourin says it will make a big difference in Bend, "We need to get vehicles away from the rail. We see seven to eight trains pass through the Reed Market corridor every day, and sometimes they stop because they have a staging area to the south. It’s a significant delay to the traveling public, and an impact on the community." He adds, "Just separating it [train traffic] is a huge safety benefit, reducing the potential for accidents with all users: cars, bikes, pedestrians. And then, just removing those barriers in our community. We’re going to see a lot of additional growth here in the southeast part of Bend, so just improving that reliability for the community growth."

Bend is one of only two Oregon cities to receive the grant funding. Portland received $500,000.