What are the competitive grant opportunities available to municipalities for transportation infrastructure?

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (the “IIJA”), referred to by the White House as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (the “BIL”) and signed by President Biden on November 15, 2021, allocates funds to various sectors of transportation infrastructure in both competitive and formula grant programs. These sectors include:

• Roads, bridges, and major projects;
• Passenger and freight rail;
• Public transportation;
• Airports and federal aviation administration facilities;
• Ports and waterways;
• Safety; and,
• Electric vehicles, buses, and ferries.[1]

The White House has published the BIL Guidebook (the "Guidebook") to aid applicants in identifying the appropriate program, whether competitive or formula grant, for various infrastructure project types.[2] The Guidebook discusses the funding amount, period of availability, funding mechanism, eligible recipients, program description, eligible uses, and next milestone for each available program. Using this framework, municipalities can find the most suitable opportunity for their application.

Another available resource is The White House’s Fact Sheet on Competitive Infrastructure Funding Opportunities for Local Governments.[3] This document, published in January 2022, lists 25 competitive infrastructure funding opportunities for local governments broken down into the following categories:

• Transportation;
• Climate, energy, and environment; and,
• Broadband, cyber, and other programs.

The White House Infrastructure Implementation Coordinator has identified a list of programs that are either currently available or will be available soon. Ten of the programs fall under the transportation category. Most include links to the agency websites where applicants can find a Notice of Funding Opportunity (“NOFO”) if one has been released, or other information pertaining to the program.[4] These programs include:

• Rebuilding American Infrastructure Sustainably and Equitably (“RAISE”) Grants;[5]
• Port Infrastructure Development Program Grants;[6]
• Bus & Bus Facilities Competitive Grants;[7]
• National Infrastructure Project Assistance (“Mega”);[8]
• Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (“INFRA”) Grants;[9]
• Safe Streets and Roads for All - Applications are expected to open in May 2022;
• Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Grants - The U.S. Department of Transportation is seeking comments on program design for Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Grants at the cited link;[10]
• Clean School Bus Program - Applications for funding will be made available in Spring 2022 on the EPA’s Clean School Bus Program website;[11]
• Reconnecting Communities - Applications will open in the second quarter of 2022; and,
• Rural Surface Transportation (“Rural”) Grants.[12]

Three of these programs are included in the Multimodal Projects Discretionary Grant opportunity to reduce the burden on state and local applicants. This allows applicants to apply for any combination of these three programs with one application as explained in the NOFO summary, which can be found on the first page of the combined NOFO.[13] The three programs are the Mega, INFRA, and Rural.