U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has announced that the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program has received 585 applications from across the country totaling $9.3 billion in requested funding – over 18 times more than the $500 million that will be awarded.
337 applications were received from the urban areas and 248 from rural communities.
“ Communities across the country know that if we want a strong, multimodal transportation system that will meet our needs in the future, ” said Secretary Foxx . “ As we have seen year after year, there are far more worthy projects than we can fund through TIGER, demonstrating the need for a serious, long-term investment in transportation funding.”
Since 2009, TIGER has provided nearly $4.6 billion to 381 projects in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, including 134 projects to support rural and tribal communities. Overall, the Department has received more than 6,700 applications requesting more than $134 billion for transportation projects across the country.
The TIGER grant program supports innovative projects, including multi-modal and multi-jurisdictional projects. These federal funds leverage money from private sector partners, states, local, and tribal governments, metropolitan planning organizations, ports, and transit agencies. The 2015 TIGER round alone has enabled communities to leverage $500 million in federal investment to support $1.4 billion in overall transportation investments.
TIGER funding was provided in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016, signed by President Obama on December 18, 2015.