RAISE Discretionary Grants Program

Federal Agency

Sub-Department

Office of Infrastructure Finance and Innovation

Purpose

Eligible applicants include State, local, Tribal, and U.S. territories' governments, including transit agencies, port authorities, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and other political subdivisions of State or local governments. Multiple States or jurisdictions may submit a joint application and should identify a lead applicant as the primary point of contact and also identify the primary recipient of the award. "Projects of Merit" from the FY24 funding round can resubmit their proposal for the Round 1 deadline.

Applicant and/or Project Eligibility Requirements

Eligible applicants include State, local, Tribal, and U.S. territories' governments, including transit agencies, port authorities, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and other political subdivisions of State or local governments. Multiple States or jurisdictions may submit a joint application and should identify a lead applicant as the primary point of contact and also identify the primary recipient of the award.

Decarbonization Considerations

Consider projects that build new, extend existing of, or enhance service capability of public transit systems. These grants can be transformational for underserved communities or less accessible corridors. Public transit - from rail to bus - has the greatest potential for long-term emissions reductions, supporting local revitalization and redevelopment, and encouraging mode-shifting from private vehicles to shared mobility. For greatest impact, consider multi-modal projects that include complete streets, new trails or extend existing trails, and enhanced or new connections with transit hubs. For electric vehicle projects, consider focusing on integrating electric charging networks on key corridors across regions or communities to facilitate EV adoption. These integrated corridors encourage broader use and scaling of EVs. For greatest impact, ensure alignment with or building upon your state's Beneficiary Mitigation Plan and VW settlement funding priorities.

Equity Considerations

DOT now seeks to fund projects that considered climate change and environmental justice in the planning stage and were designed with specific elements to address climate change impacts, with at least 40% of resources and benefits impacting low-income, disadvantaged, and/or underserved or overburdened communities. Proposals should heavily consider distributional equity considerations including where current transportation system gaps exist and which communities are either underserved or less connected to existing infrastructure.

Helpful Tips

For capital grants, the minimum award is $5 million in urban areas and $1 million in rural areas. No more than 15% of the RAISE grants may be awarded to projects in a single state. Therefore, the maximum amount that can be awarded to any single state is $345 million. The FY23 RAISE grants come from two funding sources: FY23 Appropriations Act and BIL funding. Grants awarded under BIL funding may not be greater than $25 million. Grants awarded under FY 2023 Appropriations Act funding may not be greater than $45 million. Therefore, grant requests greater than $25 million will be considered only for FY 2023 Appropriations Act funding. In order to be considered under the full funding amount available of $2.3 billion, the grant request may not exceed $25 million. To evaluate the induced Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) and emissions impacts of highways, check RMI's SHIFT calculator for more information: https://shift.rmi.org.

Other Notes

The RAISE program was previously known as DOT's TIGER and BUILD programs. Those programs have been directly replaced by RAISE. See prior FY24 awards here: https://www.transportation.gov/RAISEgrants