DOT makes $500 million available in eighth round of TIGER funding

The United States Department of Transportation said yesterday that the eighth round of its TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) competitive grant program was rolled out with $500 million available for national transportation projects.

This amount matched the $500 million doled out for TIGER in October 2015, which was its seventh round of funding.

The objective of the TIGER program is to ensure that economic funding is rapidly made available for transportation infrastructure projects and that project spending is monitored and transparent.

“The TIGER program funds vital transportation projects that provide real benefits to communities all across the country,” said DOT Secretary Anthony Foxx in a statement. “Every year, we see hundreds of compelling applications that have the potential to improve people’s access to economic opportunities, make people safer, and improve their well-being. I am proud that for seven rounds, TIGER has been able to make a valuable contribution to improving our nation’s transportation infrastructure, and I look forward to this year’s competition.”

Like all the previous rounds of TIGER grants, DOT said that Fiscal Year 2016 TIGER discretionary grants are used to fund capital investments in surface transportation infrastructure and are awarded on a competitive basis for projects having a significant impact on the nation, a metropolitan area, or a region.

And DOT added that the 2016 TIGER grant program will continue to make transformative surface transportation investments by providing improvements over existing conditions and focus on capital projects that generate economic development and improve access to reliable, safe and affordable transportation for urban and rural communities.

Since its debut in 2009, DOT said the TIGER grant program has doled out a cumulative $4.6 billion for 381 projects in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Over the previous seven rounds, DOT received more than 6,700 applications for TIGER grant funding that requested more than $134 billion for national transportation projects.

DOT also noted that the TIGER grant program supports innovative projects, including multi-modal and multi-jurisdictional projects, which are difficult to fund through traditional federal programs.  These federal funds leverage money from private sector partners, states, local governments, metropolitan planning organizations, ports, and transit agencies.

Of the $500 million available in the previous round of TIGER funding, nearly $220 million, or 44 percent of total dollars, were awarded to freight projects or projects with a strong freight component, according to data compiled by the Coalition for America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors (CAGTC).

CAGTC said that freight historically competes well in the TIGER discretionary grant program, earning 45 percent, or $2.13 billion of the $4.67 billion in available funds since 2009 through the seventh round of funding last October. On a historical basis, CAGTC offered up the following breakdown of TIGER funding over the years, including:
-the first round of TIGER awarded money in February of 2010 to a total of 51 projects, 22 of which (or 43 percent) contained a strong freight component. Those 22 projects received 49 percent of the available funds,totaling more than $730 million;
-in October of 2010, TIGER II projects with a strong freight component received $316 million,or 53 percent of the $600 million in available funding;
-in 2011, TIGER III supplied grants for 46 projects, 18 of which were
devoted to freight or had a strong freight component accounting for over $232 million (or 45 percent) of the total $511distributed through the grant program;
-TIGER IV, awarded in 2012, provided funding for 47 projects, 21 of which were devoted to freight or had a strong freight component accounting for over $228 million (or 47 percent) of the total $485 million distributed
through the grant program;
-in 2013, TIGER V provided funds for 52 projects, 25 of which were freight related, accounting for
over $205 million (or 43 percent) of the total $474 million distributed that year; and -last September, USDOT awarded a total $600 million to meritorious projects, with one in three grant dollars, or just over $198 million, to freight projects