A new website is serving as a “one-stop shop” for state and local governments, as well as contractors, transportation agencies and others, that want to learn how the new $1 trillion infrastructure law can benefit them.
The new Federal Highway Administration site includes information on how to apply for grants and other funding under the new Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which includes an additional $350 billion in highway spending over the next five years. That amount includes the largest investment in bridges since the Interstate Highway System’s launch in 1956.
The law, signed by President Joe Biden on November 15, also creates more than a dozen new highway programs for such things as “rehabilitating bridges in critical need of repair, reducing carbon emissions, increasing system resilience, removing barriers to connecting communities and improving mobility and access to economic opportunity,” according to the FHWA.
The law enables local governments, Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), Native American tribes, and other public authorities to compete directly for funding, the agency says.
You can also comment on how the FHWA should implement the funding under the law, through a Request for Information recently published in the Federal Register.
The FHWA says it will update the site in the coming weeks and months as more information becomes available.
For now, the site features sections that provide a summary of the law’s highway provisions via PowerPoint or PDF document, a breakdown of highway funding authorizations in a PDF or Excel document, information on how to find technical assistance and local support, fact sheets on what’s in the law, and a link to the legislation, which the site also calls the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
“FHWA is committed to providing easily accessible information on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law as the first of many steps we’re taking to deliver the largest transportation investment in generations,” said Deputy Federal Highway Administrator Stephanie Pollack. “As this website is expanded and updated it will be a great asset for states, counties, cities, towns and tribes seeking to take advantage of both formula and grant programs to modernize their infrastructure, improve safety and create good paying jobs.”