Billions More in Mega and INFRA Grants for Transportation Infrastructure

What happened: Thirty-seven transportation projects in 38 states will receive nearly $5 billion in federal funds from two discretionary grant programs. Mega grants (created by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) and INFRA grants (created in 2015) were combined as part of the Biden administration’s Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant Program (MPDG).

Why it matters: The awards support projects that might not be able to move forward due to their size and complexity. Among the projects funded are:

• $1 billion to replace the Blatnik Bridge that connects Superior, Wis., with Duluth, Minn.
• $600 million to replace the I-5 Bridge between Vancouver, Wash., and Portland, Ore.
• $372 million to replace Cape Cod’s 80-year-old Sagamore Bridge.
• $95 million to widen 10 miles of I-10 through the Gila River Indian Community and Pinal County in Arizona.
• $142 million to fix the I-376 corridor in Pittsburgh, a portion of which is known as “the bathtub” due to regular flooding.

Dig Deeper for a full list.

What’s next: Grant applications were evaluated based on the criteria published in the Notice of Funding Opportunity last summer. The next application period opens in mid-2024.