TIGER II Competition Even Fiercer Than Original

Washington, Aug. 12 – The Department of Transportation’s second installment of the popular Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grants has proved every bit as sought-after as the original funding allocation provided in last year’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Of the $48 billion in total transportation funding provided by the Recovery Act, $1.5 billion was reserved for the new TIGER program, which awards discretionary grants to support innovative, multimodal transportation projects that have the potential to significantly improve travel or freight transportation in a particular region or throughout the country. The initial competition drew 1,400 applications requesting $57 billion in project support — 38 times more money than the department had on hand to award.