Rural areas of the United States hit the jackpot this week when nearly 40 transportation projects in 34 states were announced as recipients of funding from the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program. The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) announced $500 million in TIGER funding has been awarded for 2015, 43 percent of which is headed to rural areas – representing the program’s highest percentage ever awarded for rural projects.
“In this round of TIGER, we selected projects that focus on where the country’s transportation infrastructure needs to be in the future; ever safer, ever more innovative, and ever more targeted to open the floodgates of opportunity across America,” said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.
The 39 projects that received funding will also result in a myriad of government contracting and subcontracting opportunities – from bridge projects to freight, rails, trails and safety improvements.
Transportation needs nationwide are as abundant as funding is limited. The breadth and depth of those needs are indicated by the number of applicants seeking funding. USDOT received 627 eligible applications from 50 states and several U.S. territories. Collectively, the applicants sought $10.1 billion for their respective transportation projects, or 20 times the funding that was available.
Award of the grants for this year was based on projects that connect communities, particularly those in distressed areas, to areas that are centers of employment, education and services; those that improve safety; and those that support innovation through use of technology to improve efficiencies, maximize transportation assets and address safety issues.
The largest awards – $25 million each – went to North Carolina and a consortium of states including Kansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin. The $25 million in TIGER funding for the consortium will go toward a $28.6 million rural project to create a regional truck parking information management system on major truck freight routes in those eight states. The goal is to improve safety for truck drivers. North Carolina will use its $25 million in funding toward a $51.6 million urban project that would complete the Charlotte Gateway Station, including the removal of existing track infrastructure, construction of bridges and retaining structures, installation of station tracks and signal installation.
About $20 million each was awarded to projects in Alabama, Texas and Maine. The city of Birmingham will apply its $20 million in grant funds to a $39.9 million urban project to develop an approximately 15-mile Bus Rapid Transit Line. A rural project of the Maine Department of Transportation will benefit from $20 million in funding to support a $37.3 million project to rehabilitate approximately 380 miles of rail track throughout the state, removing bottlenecks and creating faster and more reliable freight service. And, in Texas, a $20.8 million grant to the state transportation department will go toward a $50.3 million project to build transit facilities in rural areas of the state and to purchase hundreds of transit vehicles that will provide service to rural areas of Texas.
USDOT has posted additional information on each of the 39 grant awards, including the grant recipient, amount of the grant, total cost of the project and a detailed description of the project.
This year’s TIGER grant brings the total amount allocated through the program since its inception in 2009 to $4.6 billion. The funds have supported more than 380 projects in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.