Last week, the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) announced 166 projects that have been selected to receive $2.2 billion dollars in Federal funding through the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grant program. One of USDOT’s largest discretionary grant programs, the awards are highly coveted. Due to an increase in funding for the RAISE program from last year’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the amount for awards is more than double the amount that was available in 2021 and will stay at that level for approximately another four years.
The Biden administration is touting the fact that the overall projects picked for awards are looking more “holistically” at the nation’s transportation system, as assistant secretary for transportation policy Chris Coes put it when the awards were announced.
“This round, we saw an allocation [where] about 52 percent of our funding [is] going to roadways, but a very significant number of those projects included Complete Streets elements,” he told Streetsblog.
National transportation analyst Yonah Freemark looked at how the Biden administration allocated the 2022 RAISE grant awards and found that just 10% of the dollar amounts this year are set to fund projects that build new roadways or expand existing ones. That’s essentially the same amount as during the first year of the Biden administration, even with the increased amount of available funds. Compare that to just shy of 50% of available funds allocated by the Trump administration as part of the processor to RAISE, the BUILD program.
