Five hundred million doesn’t go as far as it used to.
The Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program is now in its seventh round of funding since 2009. For this cycle, almost $10 billion in applications were submitted for the $500 million allocated. As Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx tweeted “We've got a nickel available for every dollar of TIGER funding requested this year.”
When a program as successful as TIGER is up for renewal, the question should be: how can we grow this exponentially to meet demand? “The consistent number of high quality projects we’re unable to fund through TIGER every year demonstrates the need for Congress to act to give more communities access to this vital lifeline,” Foxx said. “That is why we proposed doubling TIGER in the GROW AMERICA Act.”
The GROW AMERICA Act is a six-year bill proposed for the 2016 budget. It increases overall transportation investment by 45 percent, and increases transit by 76 percent for both existing and new programs.
That sounds promising, but does this proposal go far enough? If passed into a long-term funding law, high-value transportation projects under TIGER will be stuck with having a dime available for every dollar in applications. Transit represents 18 percent of these applications, with another 6 percent in pedestrian-bicycle projects. Transit’s current share of $90 million will become $180 million, or an average of less than $4 million per state. Sure, this will vary widely by state, with large urban areas receiving far more and rural states less, but this illustrates the small scale of what should be a much larger program.
TIGER grants have successfully leveraged private sector investment, state and local funding, plus MPO and transit agency backing. These investment partnerships add $3.50 to every TIGER dollar – funding that has been instrumental in bringing online 342 projects across all 50 states. These public-private partnerships are favored by most politicians and are hardly a gamble. With a proven record of successful projects, it’s time to more than double down on the sure bets.
