Transportation

The purpose of this notice is to solicit applications for Rural and Tribal Assistance (RTA) Pilot Program grants. A total of $27 million is available to award for planning and design phase activities for developing transportation projects in rural or tribal communities. Grants will support hiring staff or expert firms to provide technical, legal, or financial assistance to advance transportation projects that would be reasonably expected to be eligible for select Department of Transportation discretionary grant or credit programs. There is no local match required to participate in this program.

Grants are awarded on a first-come, first-served basis to eligible applicants with an eligible project who meet the merit criteria described in the Notice of Funding Opportunity. The application form to apply for Program funding will be available beginning at 2:00 p.m. ET on March 4, 2025 on the Program's webpage: https://www.transportation.gov/buildamerica/RuralandTribalGrants. This is the only place where applications can be submitted and will be accepted. Do not submit applications through grants.gov. A pdf (one each for Single Project and Multi-Community grants) of the application questions is included in the NOFO package available under the "Related Documents" tab of this grants.gov page and is also available on the Program's webpage link above.

Two types of grants will be awarded: Single Project grants and Multi-Community grants, which will fund projects in, at minimum, three separate communities submitted under a single application.

Single Project grants: $10 million available to award
Min. award amount: $200,000
Max. award amount: $750,000
Multi-Community grants: $17 million available to award
Min. award amount: $500,000
Max. award amount: $2.25 million

$10 million of Program funding is set aside for tribal governments.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to apply early, given the first-come, first-served award process. The application portal will close at 4:59 p.m. ET on April 3, 2025; however, award funding may be committed before this date.

** The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Public Law 117-58, also referred to as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law or BIL) is a generational investment in the nation’s transportation system. Section 21205 of Division B of the BIL (Rural and Tribal Infrastructure Advancement) creates a pilot program to provide grants to fund financial, technical, and legal assistance to states and rural and tribal communities.

The purpose of this NOFO is to provide grants on a competitive basis for projects that seek to strengthen surface transportation to be more resilient to natural hazards, including climate change, sea level rise, heat waves, flooding, extreme weather events, and other natural disasters through support of planning activities, resilience improvements, community resilience and evacuation routes, and at-risk coastal infrastructure.

The vision of the PROTECT Discretionary Grant Program is to fund projects that address the climate crisis by improving the resilience of the surface transportation system, including highways, public transportation, ports, and intercity passenger rail. Projects selected under this program should be grounded in the best available scientific understanding of climate change risks, impacts, and vulnerabilities. They should support the continued operation or rapid recovery of crucial local, regional, or national surface transportation facilities. Furthermore, selected projects should utilize innovative and collaborative approaches to risk reduction, including the use of natural infrastructure, which is explicitly eligible under the program. Also called nature-based solutions, these strategies include conservation, restoration, or construction of riparian and streambed treatments, marshes, wetlands, native vegetation, stormwater bioswales, breakwaters, reefs, dunes, parks, urban forests, and shade trees. They reduce flood risks, erosion, wave damage, and heat impacts while also creating habitat, filtering pollutants, and providing recreational benefits. Projects in the PROTECT Discretionary Grant Program have the potential to demonstrate innovation and best practices that State and local governments in other parts of the country can consider replicating.