Infra Insight Blog : written by Nossaman LLP Infrastructure attorneys, covers infrastructure project delivery, including Public-Private Partnerships, Operations & Management Agreements, policy, and news.

This morning, U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) Secretary Ray LaHood announced the winners of the extremely competitive TIGER III grant application cycle.  Forty-six projects in 33 states will share $511 million in grant funds.  The announcement was made several months earlier than the originally scheduled date.

As has been the case with the previous two rounds of TIGER grants, this cycle was wildly oversubscribed.  According to the announcement, USDOT received 848 project applications from all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, DC, requesting a total of $14.29 billion, far exceeding the amount available under the TIGER III program. 

“The overwhelming demand for these grants clearly shows that communities across the country can’t afford to wait any longer for Congress to put Americans to work building the transportation projects that are critical to our economic future,” said Secretary LaHood. “That’s why we’ve taken action to get these grants out the door quickly, and that is why we will continue to ask Congress to make the targeted investments we need to create jobs, repair our nation’s transportation systems, better serve the traveling public and our nation’s businesses, factories and farms, and make sure our economy continues to grow."

Of the grants awarded, only three included payments to support TIFIA loans.  The projects that will receive TIFIA payments are the SR-91 Corridor Improvement Project managed lanes being developed by the Riverside County Transportation Commission; Virginia DOT’s I-95 HOT Lanes; and Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s Orange Line Extension.

TIGER grants are awarded to transportation projects that have significant national or regional impact.  USDOT allocated the TIGER III funds to transportation projects in both urban and rural areas.  The funding was distributed between a broad array of road and bridge, transit, port and freight rail projects.  The three rounds of TIGER grants have resulted in an award of over $2.6 billion for critical transportation funding.

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Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) and the Fort Worth Transportation Authority (The T) are in the early phases of procuring a firm to enter into a Public Private Partnership to design, construct, operate, maintain and finance a cross regional passenger rail service known as the Cotton Belt Rail Line starting on or about 2013.   

The Cotton Belt Rail Line PPP project is intended to provide regional rail connectivity for communities along the project corridor to Fort Worth, Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) Airport, the DART transit network, and major activity centers along the corridor.  This project connects passengers with the Trinity Railway Express service in downtown Fort Worth, and the DART Light Rail System via the Orange Line at DFW Airport, the Green Line in downtown Carrollton, and the Red Line in the Richardson/Plano area.  It also connects with the Addison Transit Center which provides extensive bus connectivity in the north central part of the DART Service Area.  A future connection in downtown Carrollton to the planned Denton County Transportation Authority passenger rail service between Denton and Carrollton, TX is also a possibility.  One of the objectives of the Cotton Belt Rail Line project is to provide a system that interacts seamlessly and efficiently with other transportation systems in the region.

On May 21, 2009 DART and The T issued a Request for Information to identify individuals and firms interested in a PPP for the Cotton Belt Commuter Rail Line and expect to issue a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) by September 2009.  The deadline for filing a Statement of Interest was July 24, 2009. Visit DART's website or check back here for more info.

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