US DOT Rolls Out $5B More for Infrastructure Grants

In the waning days of the Biden administration, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has awarded almost $5 billion in Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act grants to states, localities and other recipients for a variety of types of projects.

The grants, which Buttigieg announced on Jan. 10, will go to more than 560 projects located in every state, the District of Columbia and many U.S. territories. The grants come from seven IIJA programs. The largest funding source is $1.32 billion from the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) program.

The RAISE grants are divided among 109 projects. The RAISE program pre-dates the IIJA back to 2009, when it was known as TIGER and later BUILD. The RAISE projects were selected via competition and went to urban and rural projects that are regionally or locally significant. The competition for the grants continues to be keen under the IIJA. DOT received 195 RAISE applications, seeking a total of $2.4 billion.

Read the first round RAISE grant recipients.

DOT also announced $1.1 billion for 123 projects, such as overpasses and underpasses, to eliminate highway-rail grade crossings. The DOT’s Federal Railroad Administration said this round of grade-crossing grants is the largest single award of its type in the agency's history.

Other DOT programs in the new batch include $544.6 million for 81 projects to reconnect communities that have been cut off from stores, schools and other facilities by past highway and rail lines. The largest award in that category is $85.5 million for a project in Baltimore to reconnect a disadvantaged neighborhood. It would include building a cap over U.S. Route 40 as well as removing highway ramps and adding other safety and street and safety improvements.

In aviation, DOT awarded $322 million for 171 airport infrastructure projects in 32 states. By far the largest grant is $84.3 million to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, for construction of a taxiway.

Also among the infrastructure funding awards is $785 million for 24 Rural Surface Transportation Grant Program projects. The largest in the group is $61.8 million to the city of Las Cruces, N.M., for a new connector road between U.S. Route 70 and Interstates 25 and 10.

The project awards parceled out by DOT also include $635 million for 49 projects to deploy electric vehicle charging infrastructure as well as hydrogen and natural gas refueling stations.

DOT provided a scorecard for how the Biden administration has done in implementing the IIJA since the $1.2-trillion measure was enacted in November 2021. According to DOT's calculations, more than 207,000 miles of roadway are being repaired or improved. In addition, 12,000 bridge construction, repair or modernization projects are advancing.

ENR asked DOT what steps department officials are taking to ensure that the newly announced grants will be protected from being blocked by the Trump administration. A DOT spokesperson did not respond by press time.

Tom Ichniowski has been writing about the federal government as ENR’s Washington Bureau Chief since the George H.W. Bush administration, and he has covered at least five major highway bills. A recognized expert on government policy on infrastructure and regulation, Tom is also a Baltimore native and Orioles fan who grew up rooting for Brooks and Frank Robinson. He is a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia’s graduate school of journalism, where he once used “unrelentless” in a headline.

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