US DOT Announces New Round of TIGER Grant Awards

The US DOT this week announced the award of $511 million in TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grants. This is the third round of TIGER grant awards. The program was started as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and has been popular with states and local governments. USDOT received 848 project applications requesting $14.3 billion, far exceeding the $511 million made available by Congress for TIGER III grants which are awarded to transportation projects that have a significant national or regional impact. About 48% of TIGER III funding will go to road and bridge projects, 29% will support transit projects, 12% will help build port projects, and 10% will go to freight rail. The remaining 1% went to tribal governments to create jobs and address critical transportation needs on Indian reservations. In the TIGER II grants, awarded in 2010, 29 percent went to road projects, 26 percent to transit and 20 percent for rail. The program's first incarnation also divvied up money with a bulk of the largest grants going to freight rail. State DOTs received grants ranging from $6.6 million for Kansas to $20 million each for Virginia and Missouri. Other state DOT recipients are Washington state, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Illinois, North Dakota, Mississippi, and Oklahoma. The remaining 71% of awards, ranging from $1 million to $20 million, were to entities including local and regional governments, port and transit authorities, and Native American tribes. View the 52-page report listing all grant recipients, project descriptions, and benefits here. For more information, please contact Brian Deery at (703) 837-5319 or deeryb@agc.org.