The seventh round of TIGER funding was announced last week. Louisville provides a case study of how cities engage with the competitive grant process.
"Project selections for the seventh round of DOT's Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) competitive grant program were announced on October 29, 2015," according to a post on the U.S. Department of Transportation website. "The Department will provide nearly $500 million for 39 projects in 34 states, with some projects spanning several states."
The U.S. DOT splits the projects into three categories of projects: safety, innovation, and opportunity. A fact sheet provides more details on each of the 39 projects [pdf] awarded funding in this year's round of grants.
Although few local media outlets picked up the news of their grant awards last week, a spate of coverage on the mixed-results of Louisville in the TIGER process set the pace for public discussion of the potential of TIGER funding. Earlier in October, Jacob Ryan wrote extensively on the city's inability to apply for TIGER funding for the Move Louisville plan, which could pay off in the long run with project proposals that will be easy winners in competitive grant processes. Later in the month, however, Klayko noted that the city had received its first TIGER grant, for a project "to remake Dixie Highway into a multi-modal street complete with the city’s first Bus Rapid Transit System on dedicated bus lanes." Klayko's article also provides a survey of the progress on several of the transit-focused initiatives ongoing in the city of Louisville.
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