How Locals Are Planning to Spend $2.2 Billion in RAISE Transportation Grants, Part Two

Part two of a series of post providing specific information for 164 of the 166 projects recently awarded funding by the U.S. Department of Transportation's RAISE grant funding program.

12 minute read

August 29, 2022, 6:00 AM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell

A conceptual rendering of a cable-stayed bicycle and pedestrian bridge over the Sheboygan River in Sheboygan, Wisconsin

The Bicycle and Pedestrian swing bridge planned for Sheboygan, Wisconsin was awarded $5.3 million in funding from the RAISE grant program earlier this month. | Courtesy of the U.S. Department of Transportation

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Biden administration announced $2.2 billion in RAISE grant funding for transportation projects around the United States. With a 50-50 split between urban and rural projects, the Biden administration has promised to leverage the RAISE program, bolstered with funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, to reduce emissions while improving equity, increase options for car-free mobility, and improve the sustainability of the nation’s transportation systems.

The Biden administration announced the RAISE program in April 2021 as a replacement for the BUILD grant program of the Trump administration, itself a replacement of the TIGER grant program of the Obama administration. 

To provide more scrutiny of the RAISE grant funding round, especially as compared to the Biden administration’s own ambitions and the funding programs of its predecessors, Planetizen has gathered local news coverage and public relations communications on almost all of the programs funded by RAISE this month.

A few other aggregations of the RAISE grant funding program provide additional insight into the scope and the specifics of the funding round. Mass Transit, for example, tallies the total funding allocated for transit-specific projects at $476 million out of the $2.2 billion total. Freight Waves adds up the funding for all port projects and comes up with a total of $57 million. Yonah Freemark shared the results of an analysis of RAISE spending on Twitter that counted 10 percent of the $2.2 billion going toward new road construction or expansion.

For some anecdotal evidence about how grant programs during the Biden administration are differing from grant programs under the Obama administration, note that a planned extension of the Milwaukee streetcar, known as the Hop, was originally funded with $14.2 million in TIGER grants from the Obama administration. A plan to extend the Hop, however, has been passed over in all four tries for grant funding, including with this most recent round of RAISE grant funding.

The following list completes the work of part one of the series by listing the 82 projects in the second half of the grant award list (out of a total of 166). Also included are news coverage or press releases, starting with projects in the state of Missouri, for all but one of the projects (looking at you, Dallas). See part one of the series for Arizona through Mississippi.

News Coverage

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Puerto Rico

Rhode Island

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virgin Islands

Virginia

Washington

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

Press Releases

Montana

Nevada

New Jersey

New York

North Dakota

Northern Mariana Islands

Oklahoma

South Carolina

Washington

Environment Infrastructure Transportation RAISE Grants Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Biden Administration Transportation Funding Transportation Planning Secretary Pete Buttigieg Equity Greenhouse Gas Emissions Emission Reductions View More

James Brasuell

James Brasuell, AICP is the former editorial director of Planetizen and is now a senior public affairs specialist at the Southern California Association of Governments. James managed all editorial content and direction for Planetizen from 2014 to 2023, and was promoted from manging editor to editorial director in 2021. After a first career as a class five white water river guide in Trinity County in Northern California, James started his career in Los Angeles as a volunteer at a risk reduction center in Skid Row.

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