Skip to main content

Substantial demand ‘underscores need for TIGER grants’

US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has announced that applications to the US Department of Transportation (DOT) for its seventh round of Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grants totalled US$9.8 billion, almost 20 times the US$500 million set aside for the program, demonstrating the continued need for transportation investment nationwide. Among the 625 applications for grants received this year, 60 per cent are road projects, 18 per cent are transit projects, and eight p
August 3, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has announced that applications to the 324 US Department of Transportation (DOT) for its seventh round of Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grants totalled US$9.8 billion, almost 20 times the US$500 million set aside for the program, demonstrating the continued need for transportation investment nationwide.

Among the 625 applications for grants received this year, 60 per cent are road projects, 18 per cent are transit projects, and eight per cent are rail projects; with port and bicycle-pedestrian applications each representing six per cent of the total. The Department received 625 eligible construction applications from all 50 states and U.S. territories. There were 565 such applications in 2014.

“The consistent number of high quality projects we’re unable to fund through TIGER every year demonstrates the need for Congress to act to give more communities access to this vital lifeline,” Foxx said. “That is why we proposed doubling TIGER in the Grow America Act.”

The highly competitive TIGER program, which began as a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, offers federal funding possibilities for large, transformative multi-modal projects.  These federal funds leverage money from private sector partners, state and local governments, metropolitan planning organizations and transit agencies.

Since 2009, the TIGER grant program has provided a combined US$4.1 billion to 342 projects in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.  Demand has been overwhelming; during the previous six rounds, the Department received more than 6,000 applications requesting more than US$124 billion for transportation projects across the country.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Diverse development of tolling business models
    April 25, 2013
    A diversity of tolling business models offers a wider toolbox of highway finance options, as the IBTTA’s Patrick Jones explains. The business models for America’s tolled highways have gone through several different evolutions over the last 75 years, reflecting a succession of shifts in transportation policy and politics, financing and funding models, urban patterns, customer needs, and technology. And with more and more decision-makers expressing renewed interest in tolling, it’s that very diversity that ma
  • EU releases funds for key TEN-T projects
    November 30, 2012
    The European Commission has launched two Calls for Proposals under the 2012 Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) multi-annual and annual programmes, making over US1.5 billion available to finance European transport infrastructure projects in all transport modes – air, rail, road, and maritime/inland waterways – plus logistics and intelligent transport systems, in all EU Member States. Commission Vice President Siim Kallas, responsible for transport, said: "In making this considerable amount of funding a
  • Fasten your seatbelts: it’s going to be a bumpy ride
    June 26, 2018
    A spat has broken out between two major US transportation organisations over how best to pay for road use: the ATA says tolls are ‘fake funding’ while IBTTA has scorned ‘scare tactics and falsehoods’… Much has been made of the state of US roads: everyone agrees that funding is needed – but who should pay? And how? Chris Spear, president and CEO of American Trucking Associationsm(ATA), believes finance is facing a cliff edge: the Highway Trust Fund (HTF), historically the primary source of federal revenue
  • Rhode Island’s Rhode Works ‘a bold move’, says IBTTA
    February 12, 2016
    The International Bridge, tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA) has applauded Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo and state legislators for passing Rhode Works to raise revenue for much-needed bridge repairs and maintenance across the state. According to the Rhode Island government, Rhode Island ranks last in the US in overall bridge condition, with about 22 per cent of the 1,162 bridges in the state structurally deficient. Officials plan to fix more than 150 structurally deficient bridges in the state an