Fully empowering local creativity, or funding an uncoordinated muddle of disconnected projects that actually don’t add up to a strategic investment and infrastructure plan? Well, the US Government is now really putting significant tax funding behind freight project funding through FASTLANE. At GLDPartners, we’re not sure that we are necessarily spending toward a comprehensive and coordinated national business strategy, but at least we are allowing state and local officials to use their own project inventiveness. From our corporate and sector intelligence work, we see special market opportunity at and around airports and seaports. Let’s hope that we see projects that are able to solve cargo movement problems and create economic growth.
Our team of sector and project finance experts are available to talk about your ideas and help you vet approach and investigate project partners.
The USDoT late last week announced that it is soliciting applications for two discretionary grant programs totaling $1.3B. The FAST Act created a new program for “Nationally Significant Freight and Highway Projects” that USDoT is calling the FASTLANE grants program, an acronym that stands for “Fostering Advancements in Shipping and Transportation for the Long-term Achievement of National Efficiencies.” The program makes available $800M for freight projects in FY16. It is the first program in the USDoT’s 50-year history that establishes broad, multiyear e
US DOT this week announced that it is soliciting applications for two discretionary grant programs totaling $1.3B called the FASTLANE grants program, an acronym that stands for “Fostering Advancements in Shipping and Transportation for the Long-term Achievement of National Efficiencies.” The program makes available $800M for freight project in FY16.The announcement said the process state departments of transportation and other agencies will use to apply for this new funding program will be spelled out in a formal notice of funding opportunity, which would activate the initial round of what will be five years of freight-related competitive grants. It is the first program in the USDOT’s 50-year history that establishes broad, multiyear eligibilities for freight infrastructure projects including intermodal.
Of the $800M in available 2016 funding, 25% or $190M is reserved for rural projects and 10 percent or $76M for smaller ones. Over the five years of the FAST Act, the program will provide $4.5B in project grants. The FASTLANE grants will fund large projects equal to the lesser of $100M or a certain specified statutory percentage of the project state’s FY15 apportionment that are eligible for a minimum award of $25M. Smaller projects below the minimum large-project size are eligible for awards of at least $5M.
US DOT also announced this week that $500 million will be made available for transportation projects across the country under an eighth round of the highly successful Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) competitive grant program. TIGER grants are available to fund a wider array of projects. Those eligible to seek the grants include state DoTs, metropolitan planning organizations, port authorities, tribal governments and other agencies. Like the first seven rounds, FY16 TIGER discretionary grants will fund capital investments in surface transportation infrastructure and will be awarded on a competitive basis for projects that will have a significant impact on the nation, a metropolitan area, or a region.
Since 2009, TIGER has provided nearly $4.6B to 381 projects in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, including 134 projects to support rural and tribal communities. Demand has been overwhelming, and during the previous seven rounds, the Department received more than 6,700 applications requesting more than $134B for transportation projects across the country.
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