USDOT Seeks Applications for a Ninth Round of TIGER Grants

Dear T4America members,

USDOT is now seeking applications for a ninth round of TIGER grants. USDOT will be awarding a total of $500 million on a competitive basis to transportation projects that “will have a significant impact on the Nation, a metropolitan area, or a region.” While T4America fights for the continued existence of the TIGER program in 2018 and beyond, we wanted to share four quick things about this ninth round of TIGER grants as you consider applying:

1) There’s no need to rethink your existing projects or recast them for the new administration. It may be a surprise, but USDOT is using the same criteria for this round that they were using under President Obama in 2016. If you have a project you think is competitive or have submitted for recent rounds, don’t recast the project or rework the application expecting the criteria to be drastically different.

The one change was an inclusion of a rural focus, but even that emphasizes the typical goals of TIGER: “improved access to reliable, safe, and affordable transportation for communities in rural areas, such as projects that improve infrastructure condition, address public health and safety, promote regional connectivity, or facilitate economic growth or competitiveness.” And though unspoken in this notice of funding, USDOT and the Trump administration have put a big emphasis on public-private partnerships, which surely would be welcomed in the TIGER program as well.

2) Get your applications in quick. Another reason to avoid trying to recast a project or come up with a brand new project is that applications are due very soon. Unlike past rounds with as much as three months to prepare applications, there’s just a little over a month to submit your applications for consideration by October 16th. Therefore, you should choose a project that has a firm scope, budget and partners in order to get those applications in by the deadline.

3) Broad support will be vital. While the criteria may not have changed, the administration is likely to respond better to projects that have the broadest support from other local, state and federal elected leaders as well as business and civic leaders from you area. If you don’t have your congressional delegation on board, set up meetings as soon as possible to garner their support. Ask them to write supportive letters to USDOT and include your project as a topic of conversation at meetings with USDOT and other administration representatives. Having a broad bench of support from all levels of government for their project can have a positive impact on your project’s likelihood of winning an award. Why should USDOT select a project that’s not even supported by all the stakeholders?

4) Don’t forget, members can tap our expertise. As a benefit of membership, you can get free advice and staff time from T4America to answer questions about your application and help you submit the strongest application possible. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us, which you can do through outreach director Ranata Reeder: ranata.reeder@t4america.org

We wish you all the best of luck. And we hope to have good news about preserving funding for TIGER in 2018, though we’ll be counting on your continued support and advocacy to buttress those efforts in Congress over the next month or two.

Beth Osborne
Interim Director