Potential Funding for Local Highway Jurisdictions

The U.S. Secretary of Transportation recently released a message to transportation stakeholder regarding the first guidance on a new Federal grant program for freight.

“We have a significant opportunity to improve freight movement in the United States. For the first time in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s 50-year history, Congress provided dedicated funding for freight infrastructure. The Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act which includes multimodal freight policy, reflects the robust effort by many to make available Federal resources that meet our Nation’s current and future needs.

This month the Department will publish a Notice of Funding Opportunity in the Federal Register requesting applications for the Nationally Significant Freight and Highway Projects (NSFHP) program, through www.Grants.gov, as established in section 117 of Title 23 U.S.C. as amended by the FAST Act. The NSFHP program is authorized at $4.5 billion for Fiscal Years (FY) 2016 through 2020, including $800 million for FY 2016. My goal is to expeditiously fund promising freight and highway projects. As this is a new program, I want to give potential project sponsors an early indication of how we hope to maximize the program’s effectiveness…”

Read the FULL LETTER and FACT SHEET regarding current guidance.

Note: Each fiscal year they will be reserving 10% of funds for smaller projects. Additionally, 25% of all NSFHP funds are reserved for projects – either large or small projects – in rural areas, defined as an area outside a U. S. Census Bureau designated urbanized area with populations over 200,000.