On Feb. 17—the one-year anniversary of enactment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)—Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announced the recipients of federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) discretionary grants for 51 transportation projects across the nation.

Public transportation projects receiving TIGER grants include a modern streetcar in Tucson, AZ, receiving $63 million; $50 million for Kansas City transit corridors and a Green Impact Zone project in Missouri and Kansas; $45 million for the New Orleans Streetcar-Union Passenger Terminal/Loyola Loop; and $35 million for the Saint Paul Union Depot Multi-Modal Transit and Transportation Hub in St. Paul, MN. The complete list of projects is online here.

“APTA applauds Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood for his announcement today of the TIGER Discretionary Grant Program,” said APTA President William Millar. “These grant awards show a strong commitment to investing in public transportation as a part of a strategy to create jobs, grow the economy, improve our environment, and make our communities more livable. We are very pleased that the administration supports a full range of projects that will help improve mobility and provide the American public with more transportation choices.”

States, tribal governments, cities, counties, and transit agencies will receive the $1.5 billion available under TIGER, included in ARRA to spur a national competition for innovative, multi-modal, and multi-jurisdictional transportation projects that promise significant economic and environmental benefits to an entire metropolitan area, a region, or the nation. Sixty percent of the funding will go to economically distressed areas, which are home to 39 percent of the U.S. population.

DOT reported receiving more than 1,400 applications from all 50 states, territories, and the District of Columbia requesting funding for almost $60 billion worth of projects, or 40 times the amount available through the program.

“TIGER grants will tackle the kind of major transportation projects that have been difficult to build under other funding programs,” LaHood said at an event in Kansas City, MO. “This will help us meet the 21st-century challenges of improving the environment, making our communities more livable, and enhancing safety, all while creating jobs and growing the economy.”

The department selected grant recipients based on their proposal to contribute to the economic competitiveness of the nation, improve safety and the condition of the existing transportation system, enhance quality of life, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and demonstrate strong collaboration among a broad range of participants, including the private sector.
 In its first year, ARRA has provided funding for more than 12,500 transportation construction projects, of which more than 8,500 are already underway.

“We have made great strides in the past year by putting hundreds of thousands of Americans to work in transportation-related jobs,” Millar said, “and we need to continue to build on this momentum.”

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