Latest batch of TIGER grants released, supporting locally-led innovations in transportation

December 15, 2011
By Stephen Lee Davis

The third batch of TIGER transportation grants was released today, and Secretary LaHood is busy today traveling between events in Cincinnati, Philadelphia and Chicago to announce specific grants in those cities.

In case you’re not familiar with TIGER, it’s a relatively small competitive and merit-based grant program for transportation projects that address economic, environmental and travel issues at once. Thousands of applications were received by the USDOT — more than 3,200 for the $2.6 billion total that’s been granted as of today in the last two years — and they announced 46 new grantees for the $527 million in available funding for this round.

The projects span the country and encompass a wide range of projects that improve ports, relieve road, freight or rail congestion, make unsafe streets safer for walking or biking and improve transit connections. Many of the projects accomplish several of these goals at once. The projects that states and localities submit for TIGER applications, usually with broad local and community support, often have a hard time getting funded under the outdated structure of the current federal transportation program.

We’ve added today’s TIGER III grants to our map of TIGER grants from 2010 so you can find grants near you and learn more. The full list of grants is available below a larger version of this map on this page, http://t4america.org/resources/tigermap/, as well as code to embed the map on your own site.