Administration awards $1.8 billion for transportation projects across states

Nearly 150 projects across all states won a piece of $1.8 billion from the popular and competitive transportation Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity, or RAISE, grant program.

“Some of these projects are not the multibillion dollar projects that drive national headlines,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told reporters Tuesday on a call announcing the awards. “But every one of them is essential to the community where it’s happening. And when you add up these and the other thousands and thousands of projects moving forward across the country, they add up to a transportation system that is getting significantly safer, more sustainable, and more efficient to move both people and goods.”

It’s the third annual round of funding for the discretionary grant program since it saw its funding double to $7.5 billion under the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Created by President Barack Obama, the program used to be called TIGER and, under President Donald Trump, the BUILD program.

The DOT received more than 1,000 applications for $13 billion in funding, Buttigieg said. “Even with this historic amount of funding, there’s more demand than can be met in any given round,” he said.

The 148 projects cover every state, Washington, D.C. and four territories. It includes $25 million for the Arkansas Department of Transportation for a 14-mile extension of I-49; $21 million for the Wharf D Reconstruction and Resiliency Project in San Juan County, Puerto Rico; and $25 million for Santa Ana, Calif., to reconstruct an existing rail crossing and reduce the roadway from six-lanes to four-lanes with on-street protected bikeways, sidewalks, and a pedestrian overcross.

For the second year running, Washington state was awarded the most grants of any state and received the most in total funding, just under $90 million, said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The grants include $25 million for King County Parks to close a gap over Interstate 90 as part of a 42-mile shared use path. 

RAISE supports multi-modal and multi-jurisdictional projects that are traditionally more difficult to fund through other grant programs, the DOT said in a release, calling it a “keystone program of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda.”

More cities this year submitted projects that featuring housing near transit development, which has been a goal of the administration, as well as projects that highlight safety.

“We’re starting to see a real focus on safety in the project justifications, but often projects that have overlapping benefit, where safety, climate, jobs and equity all gain by that,” Buttigieg said.

More than half, 57%, of the funding went to road and highway projects and 22% went toward bicycle and pedestrian-oriented projects. The rural-urban split was 50-50.

Last year, the administration allocated $2.2 billion to fund 166 projects and awarded the same amount in 2022. All told, DOT has awarded $7.2 billion in RAISE grants for 550 projects across the country.