Taking steps to put the recently-passed Bipartisan Infrastructure Law into action, the White House and the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) said this week that $2.9 billion in funding is now available through a combined NOFO (notice of funding opportunity).
DOT said that this NOFO meshes three discretionary grant programs into a single Multimodal Projects Discretionary Grant and reducing the burden for state and local applicants while also increasing the pipeline of what it calls “shovel-worthy” projects.
“We have been traveling this year to see the pressing infrastructure needs that we have been talking about, hearing about, and worrying about for decades,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg at a press conference yesterday. “And through those decades of underinvestment, there has been a lot to see, in terms of the need around this country. We have been hearing from people describing how poor infrastructure has affected their lives. We have seen ports, bridges, and tunnels that the country relies on that are part of the lifeblood of our economy that are depending on technology that is more than a century old.”
Buttigieg explained that DOT has talked to truckers and small business owners in rural areas, from Arizona to Alabama about the costs to livelihoods and families, when local bridges are closed, adding that it has seen how Americans are united around that urgent needs to make these improvements.
“Because of President Biden's bipartisan infrastructure law, we are now able to answer that call with a historic investment,” he said. “In recent weeks, we have launched the effort to fix an estimated 15,000 bridges around the country. We have put forward the largest investment ever in our port infrastructure development program (PIDP) to move goods more quickly and smoothly and now we are taking another major step that is going to improve everyday life in America, with a $2.9B commitment to communities across three programs.”
And with one application for three marquee intramodal programs, with a shared set of criteria, he said the driver for that was to make the process simpler and more straightforward to apply for and to navigate.
“We can user a simpler, smoother process to reduce the burden and make this process fair, especially for smaller communities and give DOT a more holistic view of the needs across many programs,” he said.
DOT officials said that the deadline for applications is 11:59 pm EDT on May 23, 2022, with applicants able to find the NOFO, Frequently Asked Questions, and other helpful resources here.