USDOT announces grant recipients for FY26 BUILD grants
The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) awarded $1.73 billion in Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) grant funding to 127 projects. Transit projects accounted for $169.9 million, which went to 12 different projects.
USDOT Secretary Sean Duffy said in a press release announcing the awards that the department is “investing in repairing critical roads and bridges that connect Americans to job opportunities, port infrastructure that bolsters our national security and aviation and transit projects that move American families.”
Transit projects to enhance safety, improve reliability
Nearly $170 million was awarded to transit projects, spanning nine states and the District of Columbia. Some of those projects include:
- Milwaukee County Transit System: $14.7 million to upgrade maintenance facilities.
- Dallas Area Rapid Transit: $25 million for universal accessibility upgrades at eight stations across the Red and Blue light-rail lines.
- Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority: $25 million to implement an autonomous vehicle shuttle in downtown Chattanooga, Tenn.
- Greenville Transit Authority: $4 million to plan for rehabilitating the agency’s transit center.
- Rhode Island Public Transit Authority: $25 million to construct an intermodal transit center in downtown Providence, R.I.
- District of Columbia: $25 million to support improvements at the Virginia Railway Express’ (VRE) L’Enfant rail station and add an additional main track to the adjacent rail corridor to increase capacity.
In a VRE press release announcing the BUILD award, VRE CEO Katie Choe said the investment will help tackle the agency’s “most critical constraints.”
“Adding a fourth track at this location will relieve congestion, improve on-time performance and unlock the flexibility we need to grow service for years to come while our station improvements will make L'Enfant Station safer, more efficient and easier for all of our passengers to navigate. The L’Enfant Station Improvements and Fourth Track Project is the last piece of the puzzle to unlock the significant service increases beginning in 2030 as part of VRE’s System Plan 2050,” Choe said.
Other project awards went to the city of West Palm Beach, Fla., Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation in Michigan, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Integrated Transportation Authority of Puerto Rico. The Virginia Passenger Rail Authority accounted for the passenger rail project that received $25 million for its Richmond Layover Facility project.
“The impact of these dollars will be felt in communities nationwide for years to come,” Duffy said.
A complete list of all BUILD grant recipients can be found on USDOT’s website.
About the Author
Megan Perrero
Editor in Chief
Megan Perrero is a national award-winning B2B journalist and lover of all things transit. Currently, she is the Editor in Chief of Mass Transit magazine, where she develops and leads a multi-channel editorial strategy while reporting on the North American public transit industry.
Prior to her position with Mass Transit, Perrero was the senior communications and external relations specialist for the Shared-Use Mobility Center, where she was responsible for helping develop internal/external communications, plan the National Shared Mobility Summit and manage brand strategy and marketing campaigns.
Perrero serves as the board vice president for LIT and is a member of the American Public Transportation Association Marketing and Communications Committee. She holds a bachelor’s degree in multimedia journalism with a concentration in magazine writing and a minor in public relations from Columbia College Chicago.