USDOT: $1 billion in BUILD grant funding is available

The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) yesterday announced $1 billion in fiscal-year 2020 discretionary grant funding is available under the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) program.

The grants are used for planning and capital investments in surface transportation infrastructure and are to be awarded on a competitive basis for projects that will have a significant local or regional impact, USDOT officials said in a press release.

BUILD grants can be used to fund projects in rail, transit, ports, intermodal and other modes of transportation.

The application deadline is May 18.

Applicants' projects will be evaluated for funding based on merit criteria that include safety, economic competitiveness, quality of life, environmental sustainability, state of good repair, innovation and partnership, USDOT officials said.

For this latest round of BUILD grants, the maximum award will be $25 million. No more than $100 million can be awarded to a single state.

The USDOT intends to award half of the BUILD funding to projects in rural areas, department officials said.