SURFACE 

TRANSPORTATION

Department of 

Transportation Should 

Measure the Overall 

Performance and 

Outcomes of the 

TIGER Discretionary 

Grant Program

Report to the Ranking Member, 

Committee on Environment and Public 

Works, U.S. Senate

September 2014

GAO-14-766

United States Government Accountability Office
United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-14-766, a report to the 

Ranking Member, Committee on Environment 

and Public Works, U.S. Senate

September 2014

SURFACE TRANSPORTATION

Department of Transportation Should Measure the 

Overall Performance and Outcomes of the TIGER 

Discretionary Grant Program

Why GAO Did This Study

Since 2009, Congress has 

appropriated $4.2 billion to DOT to 

award TIGER grants for 

transportation investments intended 

to have a significant impact on the 

nation, a region, or a metropolitan 

area. GAO was asked to review the 

TIGER program. During the review, 

GAO noted a number of concerns 

with DOT’s process for evaluating 

TIGER applications and selecting 

projects during the 2013 funding 

round. Consequently, in May 2014, 

GAO recommended that DOT 

establish additional accountability 

measures for the 2014 and 

subsequent TIGER funding rounds. 

In this report, GAO assesses (1)

DOT’s progress in addressing the 

May 2014 recommendations; (2) the 

extent to which DOT has leveraged

non-federal funds in selected TIGER 

grants awarded from 2009 through 

2012, and met other selected 

program objectives; and (3) steps 

DOT has taken to measure the 

performance of the overall TIGER 

program. GAO reviewed DOT

guidelines and grant agreements for 

20 TIGER projects selected by 

region, type, and other factors.

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that DOT develop 

clear linkages between project 

performance measures and program 

goals to better measure the

performance of the TIGER program

and its funded projects in meeting 

the program’s long-term outcomes.

DOT agreed to improve performance 

measurement for the program.

What GAO Found

In response to GAO’s May 2014 recommendations on the Department of 

Transportation’s (DOT) management of the Transportation Investment 

Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program, DOT revised its 

procedures to improve documentation of key decisions. In May 2014, GAO 

found, among other things, that DOT did not document its rationale for advancing 

43 projects with lower technical evaluation ratings instead of 22 more highlyrated projects in the 2013 funding round. GAO recommended that DOT provide

more complete documentation of decisions to advance projects with lower 

technical evaluation ratings. In response, DOT revised its application evaluation 

guidelines for the 2014 funding round to require additional documentation, but 

the revised guidelines lack sufficient detail for GAO to determine whether some 

concerns will be addressed. For example, the revised guidelines do not specify 

who may request the advancement of a lower-rated project and at what point in 

the process those decisions can occur. DOT was in the process of evaluating 

TIGER applications for the 2014 funding round during our review and recently 

announced its award decisions. GAO will review DOT’s application evaluation 

and project selection decisions for the most recent funding round to determine if 

the May 2014 recommendations are fully addressed.

DOT has leveraged investments from state and local agencies through selected 

TIGER grants and taken steps to address the program’s statutory requirements. 

In GAO’s review of 20 selected projects from the 2009 through 2012 funding 

rounds, about one-half of the total construction costs were funded by non-federal 

sources, with 34 percent of funds coming from counties, cities, and other local 

agencies. DOT has also taken steps to address other program objectives, 

including statutory requirements for an equitable geographic distribution of funds, 

to award specified funding amounts to rural projects, and to invest in a variety of 

transportation modes through rail, road, transit, port, and other projects. 

DOT has taken steps to measure the performance of individual TIGER projects, 

but cannot assess overall program performance because many project 

performance measures do not clearly link to the overall program’s long-term 

outcomes. DOT requires grantees to measure the performance and results of 

their individual projects through periodic reporting of key performance measures

developed in coordination with DOT. However, selected TIGER projects’

performance measures from the first four funding rounds did not satisfy two key 

attributes—linkage to overall program goals and measurable targets—that GAO 

has identified for successful performance measures. For example, many of the 

project measures do not clearly link to the TIGER program’s five long-term 

outcomes, such as improving the state-of-good repair and the safety of 

transportation systems. These outcomes serve as DOT’s goals for the program 

and mirror DOT’s overall strategic goals. As a result, DOT lacks a framework to 

assess the performance of the overall TIGER program in achieving its long-term 

outcomes, and Congress lacks information on whether the amounts invested in 

the program have had their intended impact on the nation’s transportation 

infrastructure—information that could be useful when making future funding 

decisions. View GAO-14-766. For more information, 

contact Susan Fleming at (202) 512-2834 or 

flemings@gao.gov.
Page i GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

Letter 1 

Background 4

DOT’s Revised TIGER Application Evaluation Guidance Requires 

Additional Documentation of Key Decisions, but Some 

Requirements Lack Specificity 13

DOT Has Leveraged Non-Federal Investment through Selected 

TIGER Projects and Taken Steps to Address Other Program 

Objectives 16

DOT Has Taken Steps to Measure TIGER Project Performance, 

but Does Not Assess Overall Program Performance 24

Conclusions 32

Recommendation for Executive Action 32

Agency Comments 33

Appendix I Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 34

Appendix II Results of TIGER V (2013) Application Evaluation and Project 

Selection Process 41

Appendix III Selected Projects Reviewed by GAO 46

Appendix IV Comments from the Department of Transportation 47

Appendix V GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 49

Tables

Table 1: DOT’s Technical Evaluation Ratings for TIGER V (2013) 

Funding Round 9

Table 2: Federal, State, Local, and Other Funding Sources for 20 

Selected TIGER Grant Agreements, TIGER I (2009) 

through TIGER IV (2012) 17

Contents
Page ii GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

Table 3: TIGER Funding for 20 Selected Projects, by Urban and 

Rural Projects and Type, TIGER I (2009) through TIGER 

IV (2012) 18

Table 4: TIGER Grant Award Amounts, by Region and Population 

Share, TIGER I (2009) through TIGER V (2013) 21

Table 5: Statutory Requirements for Funding Projects in Rural 

Areas and Grants Awarded, TIGER I (2009) through 

TIGER V (2013) 22

Table 6: Amounts Awarded to Different Project Types, TIGER I 

(2009) to TIGER V (2013) 23

Table 7: Status of Grantees Awarded Capital Projects in TIGER I 

(2009) through TIGER IV (2012) in Submitting Required 

Performance Reports to DOT, as of February 2014 26

Table 8: GAO’s Key Attributes of Successful Performance 

Measures 37

Table 9: TIGER V (2013) Technical Evaluation Team Ratings, by 

Region 41

Table 10: TIGER V (2013) Application Technical Evaluation 

Ratings, Urban versus Rural Projects 42

Table 11: TIGER V (2013) Technical Evaluation Team Ratings for 

All Projects Reviewed, by Project Type 43

Table 12: TIGER V (2013) Technical Evaluation Team Ratings for 

Projects Awarded Funds, by Project Type 43

Table 13: TIGER V (2013) Project Readiness Team Ratings, by 

Region 44

Table 14: TIGER V (2013) Economic Analysis Team’s Ratings of 

the Usefulness of Benefit Cost-Analyses, by Region 45

Table 15: TIGER V (2013) Economic Analysis Team’s Ratings of 

the Results of Applicants’ Benefit-Cost Analyses, by 

Region 45

Table 16: 20 Selected TIGER Projects Reviewed by GAO, Fiscal 

Years 2009 (TIGER I) through 2012 (TIGER IV) 46

Figures

Figure 1: Timeline of TIGER Discretionary Grant Program, 2009 to 

Present 6

Figure 2: Amount of TIGER Funding and Number of TIGER 

Capital Grants Awarded, TIGER I (2009) through TIGER 

V (2013) 11
Page iii GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

Abbreviations

BCA benefit-cost analysis 

DOT Department of Transportation 

FHWA Federal Highway Administration

FRA Federal Railroad Administration 

FTA Federal Transit Administration 

GPRA Government Performance and Results Act

MARAD Maritime Administration 

MAP-21 Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act

NOFA notice of funding availability 

TIFIA Transportation Infrastructure Finance and 

 Innovation Act

TIGER Transportation Investment Generating Economic 

 Recovery

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Page 1 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

441 G St. N.W.

Washington, DC 20548

September 23, 2014

The Honorable David Vitter

Ranking Member

Committee on Environment and Public Works

United States Senate

Dear Mr. Vitter:

Since 2009, Congress has appropriated $4.2 billion to the Department of 

Transportation (DOT) to award competitive grants to states, local 

governments, transit agencies, and other entities to build infrastructure 

through the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery 

(TIGER) discretionary grant program. Congress first authorized and 

appropriated funding to the TIGER program through the American 

Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) to fund highway, 

transit, rail, port, and other surface transportation projects expected to 

have a significant impact on the nation, a metropolitan area, or a region.1

Since the Recovery Act, DOT has received appropriations for the 

program in each of the last 5 fiscal years. At the time of our review, DOT 

had awarded $3.6 billion to 271 projects through five annual funding 

rounds.

2

Discretionary grant programs represent a significant departure from the 

formula-based approach regularly used to fund the nation’s surface 

transportation program, in which funds are delivered according to 

prescribed formulas and not based on projects’ anticipated outcomes. 

Through the Recovery Act, Congress directed DOT to (a) establish a 

competitive process for awarding $1.5 billion in discretionary grants and 

(b) publish selection criteria on which to base the competition. The 

Recovery Act and subsequent appropriations to fund TIGER awards in 

later funding rounds required DOT to meet several requirements in 

making award decisions, including that DOT prioritize projects that require 

 

 

1

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Pub. L. No. 111-5, 123 Stat. 115, 203 

(2009).

2

During our review, DOT was in the process of evaluating applications for a sixth TIGER 

funding round (2014) and announced those awards on September 12, 2014. Due to the 

timing of those awards, they are not included in this report.
 

Page 2 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

a contribution of federal funds in order to complete an overall financing 

package—a provision that could encourage grantees to leverage or 

obtain funds from other sources through TIGER awards.3

You asked that we examine DOT’s TIGER discretionary grant program. 

During the course of our review, we identified a number of issues with 

DOT’s process for evaluating TIGER applications and selecting projects 

for awards. As a result, in May 2014, we issued a letter to the Secretary 

of Transportation concerning DOT’s application evaluation process for the 

fiscal year 2013 funding round—referred to as TIGER V in this report.4 In 

that letter we noted that, during the TIGER V funding round, DOT did not 

document key decisions made in evaluating applications and selecting 

projects for funding and deviated from DOT’s established procedures and

from recognized internal control standards.5

 

3

The statutory requirements are in DOT’s appropriations providing funding for the TIGER 

program from fiscal year 2009 through 2014: Pub. L. No. 111-5, 123 Stat. at 203-04 

(2009) (TIGER I, 2009); Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010, Pub. L. No. 111-117, 123 

Stat. 3034, 3036 (2009) (TIGER II, 2010); Department of Defense and Full-Year 

Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011, Pub. L. No. 112-10, 125 Stat. 191 (2011) (TIGER III, 

2011); Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2012, Pub. L. No. 112-55, 

125 Stat. 552, 641(2011) (TIGER IV, 2012); Consolidated and Further Continuing 

Appropriations Act, 2013, Pub. L. No. 113-6, 127 Stat. 198 (2013) (TIGER V, 2013). 

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014, Pub. L. No. 113-76, 128 Stat. 5, 574 (2014) 

(TIGER VI, 2014).

We concluded that an 

absence of documentation of such decisions can give rise to challenges 

to the integrity of the evaluation process and the rationale for the 

decisions made. We recommended that DOT establish additional 

accountability measures to manage the TIGER program, including clear 

procedures for addressing late-arriving applications and for documenting 

and approving major decisions in the application evaluation and project 

selection process. In responding to our May 2014 letter, DOT generally 

agreed with our recommendations and reported that it was planning to 

make changes to clarify procedures and better document key decisions in 

the TIGER VI (2014) funding round.

4

GAO, Surface Transportation: Actions Needed to Improve Documentation of Key 

Decisions in the TIGER Discretionary Grant Program, GAO-14-628R (Washington, D.C.: 

May 28, 2014).

5

GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1

(Washington, D.C.: November 1999).
 

Page 3 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

For this report, we examined (1) DOT’s progress in addressing the 

recommendations made in our May 2014 letter, (2) the extent to which 

DOT has leveraged non-federal funds in selected TIGER grants awarded 

in the 2009 through 2012 funding rounds, and met selected other TIGER 

program objectives, and (3) steps DOT has taken to measure the 

performance of the overall TIGER program.

To assess changes made by DOT to its TIGER application evaluation 

procedures, we compared DOT’s written procedures for the TIGER VI 

(2014) funding round with the recommendations from our May 2014 

letter.6

To evaluate the steps DOT has taken to measure performance of the 

overall TIGER program, we conducted interviews with DOT officials and 

reviewed TIGER program documents and grant agreements, and we 

determined that DOT measures performance on a project-by-project 

basis. To assess whether this approach would measure the performance 

of the overall TIGER program, we assessed this approach against federal 

internal-control standards

Because DOT was in the process of evaluating TIGER VI 

applications at the time of our review, we did not assess the results of the 

TIGER VI evaluations or the extent to which DOT applied its revised 

procedures in the TIGER VI funding round. To assess non-federal 

investments leveraged through TIGER, we reviewed the funding sources 

in the grant agreements of a non-generalizable sample of 20 TIGER 

projects funded in the first four funding rounds. We selected these 

projects using criteria including project type, geographic region, and 

whether the project was located in an urban or rural area. To assess the 

extent to which DOT has met other selected program objectives, we 

reviewed the statutory requirements for the awarding of TIGER grants in 

the first five funding rounds—TIGER I (2009) through TIGER V (2013). 

We selected three key statutory requirements that provide descriptions of 

how TIGER funding has been awarded in the first five rounds, including 

requirements for (1) an equitable geographic distribution of funds; (2) 

minimum amounts awarded to projects in rural areas; and (3) investing in 

a variety of transportation modes.

7

 

6

and evaluated the performance measures in 

required “pre-project reports” as submitted by the 20 selected projects as 

GAO-14-628R. 

7

GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1

(Washington, D.C.: November 1999).
 

Page 4 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

of March 2014.8 In total, we reviewed the performance measures for 15 

grantees that had submitted pre-project reports at the time of our review. 

We assessed the extent to which the required performance measures for 

these grantees adhered to three key attributes of successful performance 

measures—linkage to program goals, clarity, and measurable targets.9

We conducted this performance audit from August 2013 to September 

2014 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to 

obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for 

our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 

that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings 

and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

We selected these three attributes because, due to the early stage of the 

projects in our sample, the pre-project reports did not provide sufficient 

information to evaluate all of the other attributes. A detailed discussion of 

our objectives, scope, and methodology is provided in appendix I.

Traditionally, federal surface transportation funding has primarily been 

delivered through formula grant programs. Discretionary grant programs, 

such as TIGER, represent an alternative approach for directing federal 

funding toward national priorities. Through a discretionary grant program, 

Congress or federal agencies establish desired goals or outcomes—such 

as improving the condition of critical infrastructure, enhancing economic 

competitiveness, or reducing fatalities. Generally, federal agencies review 

grant applications against published selection criteria and legislative and 

regulatory requirements before selecting projects to receive awards. This 

approach can help assure accountability for federal investment by more

clearly linking program funds to desired outcomes and providing an 

 

8

DOT requires TIGER grantees to submit a pre-project performance report which is to 

provide baseline data on the performance of projects for key measures, prior to 

construction.

9

Prior GAO work has identified nine attributes of successful performance measures, 

including linkage, clarity, measurable target, reliability, objectivity, governmentwide 

priorities, core program activities, balance, and limited overlap. GAO, Tax Administration: 

IRS Needs to Further Refine Its Tax Filing Season Performance Measures, GAO-03-143 

(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 22, 2002). A detailed discussion of the 9 attributes of successful 

performance measures and our methodology to assess the selected TIGER project 

performance measures by the three attributes of linkage, clarity, and measurable targets 

is provided in appendix I.

Background
 

Page 5 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

opportunity for the grantees and the federal government to measure 

progress in achieving those outcomes. In prior work, we have 

recommended that a merit-based competitive approach—like TIGER—be 

used to direct a portion of federal funds to transportation projects of 

national and regional significance.10 Congress has established two 

discretionary grant programs designed to fund transportation projects 

intended to have significant impact at the national and regional level; only 

one of which—the TIGER discretionary grant program—has been 

appropriated funding.11

From fiscal year 2009 through 2013, DOT awarded $3.6 billion in funding 

in the form of 271 TIGER grants across five funding rounds.

12

 

10GAO, Surface Transportation: Clear Federal Role and Criteria-Based Selection Process 

Could Improve Three National and Regional Infrastructure Programs,

On 

September 12, 2014, DOT awarded an additional $584 million to 72 

projects for its fiscal year 2014 (TIGER VI) funding round. At the onset of 

each funding round, DOT announces the amount of funding available 

along with other information for applicants in notice of funding availability 

(NOFA) published in the Federal Register. After evaluating applications 

and making project selections, DOT announces its awards on its website. 

The 271 TIGER projects awarded to date include 238 capital grants, 

which represent 99 percent of the total funding awarded, and 33 planning 

grants awarded as part of TIGER II (2010) round (see fig. 1).

GAO-09-219 

(Washington, D.C.: Feb. 6, 2009).

11Through the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21), Congress 

authorized $500 million for fiscal year 2013 to the Projects of National and Regional 

Significance program to fund surface transportation capital projects that will accomplish 

national goals, such as generating national economic benefits and improving safety. At the 

time of this review, no funds authorized under MAP-21 have been appropriated for this 

program.

12Although DOT awarded grants to a total of 271 projects from fiscal year 2009 through 

2013, DOT did not obligate any funding to one of those projects (San Bernardino Airport 

Access Project) after learning that two of the project sponsors were under federal 

investigation. DOT reallocated the $10 million award amount among four other projects 

that were awarded grants in 2010. 
 

Page 6 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

Figure 1: Timeline of TIGER Discretionary Grant Program, 2009 to Present

Notes: TIGER refers to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) 

discretionary grant program.

NOFA refers to: notice of funding availability.

Differences in the amounts appropriated and awarded within TIGER funding rounds represent funding 

set aside for DOT’s administration and oversight of the program.

Through appropriations for the TIGER program in the past 6 years, 

Congress has established several statutory requirements for DOT in 

awarding TIGER grants. Since the Recovery Act, Congress required that

DOT take measures to ensure (1) an equitable geographic distribution of 

funds and (2) an appropriate balance in addressing the needs of urban 

and rural communities, among other requirements.13

 

13See e.g. Pub. L. No. 111-5, 123 Stat. 204. 

Additional statutory 

requirements have been enacted for subsequent funding rounds. For 
 

Page 7 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

example, since fiscal year 2010 (TIGER II), legislation has required that 

DOT invest in a variety of transportation modes and set aside funds for 

projects located in rural areas. Since fiscal year 2010, legislation has also 

established the federal share for TIGER grants awarded to projects in 

urbanized areas be up to 80 percent of the total project costs, while rural 

projects may receive 100 percent federal funding. Congress has also 

required DOT to give priority to projects that require a contribution of 

federal funds in order to complete an overall financing package, and other 

requirements.14 Congress has also established deadlines within each 

appropriation for DOT to obligate funds to projects, generally within 2 to 3 

years of the appropriation of funds.15

DOT established criteria for evaluating TIGER applications and selecting 

projects, which were published prior to each funding round in a NOFA in 

the Federal Register. The five primary selection criteria are desired longterm outcomes for the nation’s transportation system, based on the five 

strategic goals in DOT’s current Strategic Plan. Those long-term 

outcomes are state-of good repair, economic competitiveness, livability, 

environmental sustainability, and safety. Through its NOFAs, DOT 

defines and provides direction to applicants for addressing each outcome 

in their grant applications.16

 

14For example, since fiscal year 2010 (TIGER II), Congress required that not more than 25 

percent of TIGER funds were to be awarded to projects in a single state and that a portion 

of TIGER funds may be used to pay the subsidy and administrative costs of projects 

funded under DOT’s Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) 

program, which provides federal credit assistance to finance surface transportation 

projects of national and regional significance. Pub. L. No. 111-117, 123 Stat. 3036.

For example, DOT defines “livability” as 

“increasing transportation choices and access to transportation services 

15DOT has a time frame of 2 years and 8 months to obligate fiscal year 2014 (TIGER VI) 

funds, which are available for obligation until the statutory deadline of September 30, 

2016.

16The TIGER V (2013) NOFA descriptions of the five long-term TIGER outcomes include: 

(1) State of Good Repair: Improving the condition of existing transportation facilities and 

systems, with particular emphasis on projects that minimize lifecycle costs and improve 

resiliency; (2) Economic Competitiveness: Contributing to the economic competitiveness 

of the United States over the medium- to long-term by improving the national 

transportation system while creating and preserving jobs; (3) Livability: Increasing 

transportation choices and access to transportation services for people in communities 

across the United States; (4) Environmental Sustainability: Improving energy efficiency, 

reducing dependence on oil, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and benefitting the 

environment; (5) Safety: Improving the safety of U.S. transportation facilities and systems. 

See 78 Fed. Reg. 24786 (Apr. 26, 2013).
 

Page 8 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

for people in communities across the United States,” with particular 

consideration given to projects that provide “affordable and convenient 

transportation choices.” In TIGER V (2013) DOT included a sixth primary 

selection criterion, project readiness, to encourage projects sufficiently 

advanced to complete all environmental reviews, before the 18-month, 

September 30, 2014, obligation deadline—the shortest obligation period 

of availability of all TIGER rounds. Since TIGER I (2009), DOT has also 

included secondary selection criteria to encourage innovation and 

partnerships among project participants. DOT’s NOFA for the TIGER V 

funding round, for example, states that DOT will award funds to projects 

that are well aligned with one or more of the selection criteria. DOT gives 

more weight to the primary selection criteria than to the two secondary 

selection criteria; and that it does not consider any of the five long-term 

outcomes to be to be more important than the others.

To fulfill the legislative requirement to award funds on a competitive basis, 

DOT has established a process in its NOFAs and internal guidance to 

evaluate and rate TIGER applications against the department’s selection 

criteria and the statutory requirements. The process is led by DOT’s 

Office of the Under Secretary of Transportation for Policy—referred to in 

this report as the Policy Office—and includes several teams, generally 

reviewing applications in the sequence below. After award decisions are 

made, DOT modal administrations work with grantees to execute 

agreements detailing the scope of the project based on the amount 

awarded, the sources of funding, and reporting requirements. Appendix II 

provides the results of the TIGER V application evaluation process and 

funding decisions.

• Technical evaluation teams: Technical evaluation teams are led by 

Policy Office officials and staffed with subject matter experts from the 

four surface transportation modal administrations that administer 

TIGER grants: Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Federal 

Transit Administration (FTA), Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), 

and the Maritime Administration (MARAD). The technical evaluation 

leader assigns each TIGER project’s application an overall rating of 

“highly recommended,” “recommended,” “acceptable,” or “not 

recommended” and records a narrative of how each project 

addressed the selection criteria into a TIGER grant application 

evaluation database managed by the Policy Team. Technical 

evaluation teams are to assign ratings based on the selection criteria 

in the NOFA and not consider the statutory requirements. Projects 

that received an overall rating of “highly recommended” are to be 

advanced for further review and funding consideration (see table 1).
 

Page 9 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

Table 1: DOT’s Technical Evaluation Ratings for TIGER V (2013) Funding Round

Technical

evaluation rating Definition

Highly recommended The project aligns extremely well with the objectives of the 

selection criterion under consideration.

Recommended The project aligns well with the objectives of the selection 

criterion under consideration.

Acceptable The project provides limited value with respect to the selection 

criterion under consideration, or the project’s alignment with 

the criterion was not addressed in the application.

Not recommended The project would adversely impact DOT’s efforts to promote 

the outcomes described for the criterion under consideration.

Source: DOT’s TIGER V (2013) Guidelines for Evaluation of Applications. | GAO-14-766

Note: TIGER refers to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) 

discretionary grant program.

• Project readiness and economic analysis teams: After the technical 

evaluation teams complete their reviews, highly recommended 

projects are to be advanced to a project readiness team, which 

assesses a project’s level of risk (high, moderate, or low) for being 

able to complete any federal environmental and other requirements 

before expiration of statutory deadlines to incur obligations.17 At the 

same time, an economic analysis team reviews the required benefitcost analysis (BCA) for each advanced application to assess (1) the 

“usefulness” of the BCA in estimating project benefits and costs, and 

(2) whether the total estimated benefits are reasonably likely to 

outweigh project costs. The results of these teams’ reviews are to be 

recorded in DOT’s TIGER application evaluation database and 

presented to the senior review team, along with the results of the 

technical evaluations.18

• Senior Review Team: After the economic analysis and project 

readiness reviews, highly recommended projects are then advanced 

to a senior review team comprised of senior officials charged with 

making recommendations to the Secretary of Transportation on which 

 

17For example, the fiscal year 2013 appropriation for TIGER required DOT to obligate 

funding within 18 months, that is, by September 30, 2014. Pub. L. No. 113-6.

18See appendix II for the results of the TIGER V project readiness and economic analysis 

reviews. 
 

Page 10 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

projects to fund.19 As noted in our prior work, the senior review team 

may make award recommendations from the highly recommended 

projects advanced or request to see additional projects that were not 

advanced.20 The senior review team documents its recommendations 

in a memorandum provided to the Secretary of Transportation that 

explains how each recommended projects aligns with the long-term 

outcome selection criteria. The Secretary makes the final selections.

• Control and Calibration Team: A team of Policy Office officials is 

charged with ensuring the quality, integrity, and consistency of the 

evaluation process and, according to DOT TIGER guidelines, is to use 

statistical analysis and random selection to choose applications from 

each evaluation team for review. According to the TIGER guidelines, 

the control and calibration team or the senior review team may, if 

necessary, recommend possible adjustments to the list of projects 

advanced by the technical evaluation teams to help satisfy the 

statutory requirements while remaining as consistent as possible with 

the competitive ratings. The control and calibration team’s review 

occurs throughout the application evaluation process and not as a 

discrete step in the process.

In recent funding rounds, DOT has awarded smaller TIGER grant awards 

to a larger number of applicants in comparison with earlier funding 

rounds. The Recovery Act appropriated $1.5 billion for discretionary 

grants for capital investments in surface transportation infrastructure, 

which became the TIGER program. In TIGER I (2009), DOT funded 

substantially larger projects, $29 million on average, than the subsequent 

funding rounds. From TIGER II (2010) through TIGER V (2013), the 

average award has been less than $11 million, and the number of grants 

 

19The senior review team consists of the Deputy Secretary of Transportation, the 

Administrators of FHWA, FTA, FRA, and MARAD, and the Research and Innovative 

Technology Administration, the Under Secretary of Transportation for Policy, the Assistant 

Secretary of Transportation for Policy, the Assistant Secretary for Governmental Affairs, 

the General Counsel, the Chief Financial Officer, and the Assistant Secretary for Aviation 

and International Affairs.

20In our March 2011 report, we found that in TIGER I (2009) 50 recommended 

applications and 1 not recommended application were advanced to the senior review 

team, of which 25 recommended applications were selected for funding; 26 highly 

recommended applications were also funded that round. GAO, Surface Transportation: 

Competitive Grant Programs Could Benefit from Increased Performance Focus and Better 

Documentation of Key Decisions, GAO-11-234 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 30, 2011).
 

Page 11 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

awarded in each round and the states in which those projects are located 

has increased (see fig. 2).

Figure 2: Amount of TIGER Funding and Number of TIGER Capital Grants Awarded, 

TIGER I (2009) through TIGER V (2013)

Notes: TIGER refers to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) 

discretionary grant program.

This figure does not include the 33 planning grants worth $27.6 million that DOT awarded in TIGER II 

(2010).

The award amounts have not been adjusted for inflation.

In prior work, we recommended refocusing surface transportation 

programs to make grantees more accountable by establishing more 

performance-based links between surface transportation funding and 
 

Page 12 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

program outcomes.21 Since the initial TIGER funding round (2009), DOT 

has made efforts to measure the performance of funded projects by 

working with grantees to develop key performance measures of project 

results and report performance information to DOT before and after the 

projects are completed. In addition, Congress has included provisions in 

the most recent surface transportation authorization to move toward a 

more performance-based surface transportation program. 22 The Moving 

Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) (1) identifies seven 

national performance goals for infrastructure, including reducing serious 

injuries and fatalities, traffic congestion, and other areas; (2) requires the 

Secretary of Transportation, in consultation with states and others, to 

establish performance measures for these goals; and (3) requires states 

and other grantees to establish performance targets for those measures 

and to report the progress in achieving these targets.23

In our March 2011 report on DOT’s first TIGER funding round, we found 

that DOT developed comprehensive selection criteria and a competitive 

process for evaluating applications, but it did not document key decisions 

including its rationale for selecting projects with lower technical evaluation 

ratings for half the awards over more highly-rated ones.

DOT is currently in 

the process of implementing MAP-21 performance-measurement 

requirements.

24

 

21GAO, Surface Transportation: Restructured Federal Approach Needed for More 

Focused, Performance-Based, and Sustainable Programs, 

We noted that 

the absence of such documentation can give rise to challenges to the 

integrity of DOT’s selection decisions and subject it to criticism that it 

selected projects for reasons other than merit. We reported that it is 

critical that DOT gain the confidence of Congress and the public and 

show that it can fairly and expertly administer a multi-modal, multi-billion 

dollar discretionary program. Similarly, as previously discussed, in May 

2014, we reported that DOT did not document key decisions made during 

the TIGER V (2013) grant application evaluation and selection process 

GAO-08-400 (Washington, 

D.C.: Mar. 6, 2008).

22Pub. L. No. 112-141, 126 Stat. 405 (2012). 

23Pub. L. No. 112-141, § 1203, 126 Stat. at 524-526.

24GAO-11-234. 
 

Page 13 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

and deviated from its established procedures.25 We recommended that 

DOT establish additional accountability measures for the TIGER program.

In response to our May 2014 recommendation, DOT revised its 

application evaluation guidelines for the TIGER VI funding round. Due to 

the timing of DOT’s TIGER VI application evaluation and selection 

process, we did not assess the extent to which DOT applied its revised 

procedures. However, if consistently applied, we believe that these 

changes to DOT’s procedures could improve the TIGER application 

evaluation and project selection process in several areas:

Late-arriving applications: In May 2014, we found that DOT did not 

document or publicly communicate its decision to accept 146 TIGER V 

applications received after the published deadline of June 3, 2013. DOT 

officials told us that the grants.gov web site experienced technical issues 

on the deadline that caused many applications to be submitted late. 

However, DOT did not follow its procedures and validate that all latearriving applications had experienced technical issues and subsequently 

accepted applications for an additional 30 days without notifying the 

public of this decision. We recommended that DOT establish clear 

procedures for addressing late-arriving applications and communicate its 

decisions to either accept or reject these applications to the public. In 

response, DOT revised its guidance and public notice information to state 

that late-arriving applications will not be accepted without documentation 

of a technical issue that does not stem from user error. In May 2014, DOT 

reported that it received 54 late-arriving TIGER VI applications and 

rejected all but 1 of these for not providing required documentation of a 

valid technical problem.

Changing technical ratings: In May 2014, we found that after DOT 

finalized TIGER V award selections, DOT changed the technical ratings 

of the 19 lower-rated funded projects (17 recommended; 2 acceptable) to 

highly recommended without adequate documentation. In response to our 

recommendation that DOT document and provide a clear rationale for 

changes to an application’s technical evaluation rating, DOT revised its 

TIGER VI guidance to state that DOT will not change the original 

technical evaluation ratings for a project throughout the entire review 

 

25GAO-14-628R. 

DOT’s Revised 

TIGER Application 

Evaluation Guidance 

Requires Additional 

Documentation of 

Key Decisions, but 

Some Requirements 

Lack Specificity
 

Page 14 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

process, even if lower-rated projects are advanced to the senior review 

team or selected for funding.

Advancing and funding lower-rated projects: In May 2014, we found that 

DOT did not document its rationale for advancing 43 projects with lower 

technical ratings instead of 22 more highly-rated projects. We 

recommended that DOT document and approve, either through a 

decision memorandum or similar mechanism, decisions to (1) not 

advance applications rated as highly recommended, and (2) advance 

applications other than those rated as highly recommended. In response, 

DOT revised its TIGER VI guidance to state that any reasons for 

advancing projects with recommended or acceptable technical ratings will 

be “fully documented” in DOT’s internal application evaluation database.

These revisions could improve DOT’s documentation of application 

evaluation decisions, but the revised TIGER VI application evaluation 

guidelines lack sufficient detail for us to determine whether some 

concerns we raised in May 2014 will be adequately addressed. 

Specifically, although DOT’s revised guidelines state that it will “fully 

document” reasons for advancing lower-rated applications, the guidelines 

do not:

• Address whether all highly recommended projects will be advanced to 

the senior review team, or whether and how decisions not to advance 

such projects will be documented.

• Describe the specific information or level of detail that is to be 

included in the documentation to advance lower-rated projects. For 

example, the revised guidelines do not require that a project-specific 

reason be given, such as whether a project is advanced to meet a 

specific statutory requirement.

• Specify by whom a request to advance a lower-rated project is to be 

made and documented and at what point in the process those 

decisions are to occur. In May 2014, we found that in advancing 43 

lower-rated projects for funding consideration, DOT (1) convened 

several meetings of senior DOT officials in the Policy Office and (2) 

shared preliminary lists of applications to be advanced with DOT 

modal administrations to determine which projects to advance. We 

reported that this was inconsistent with DOT’s TIGER application 

evaluation guidelines, which did not describe procedures through 

which the Policy Office and modal administrations are to be given an 

opportunity to identify projects to be advanced to the senior review 
 

Page 15 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

team. The revised TIGER guidelines state that the senior review 

team, which includes senior leadership in the Office of the Secretary 

and the heads of each of the modal administrations, may request that 

the control and calibration team review and advance a recommended 

or acceptable project. However, the guidelines do not describe 

whether such requests may be made by individual members at any 

point in the process, or by the senior review team as a whole once it 

convenes to review applications. Furthermore, the guidelines do not 

provide specific procedures for when and how the senior review team 

is to submit these requests, for documenting the rationale for the 

request, and for making the final decisions.

In response to our concerns regarding a lack of specificity in its revised 

guidance, DOT officials told us that additional measures were being taken 

in the TIGER VI (2014) funding round. DOT officials said that all highly 

recommended projects will be advanced to the senior review team. The 

officials also stated that senior review team members must justify any 

requests to advance a lower-rated project based on the selection criteria, 

and those requests are reviewed by the control and calibration team. 

Such requests can come at any time in the process—including during 

senior review team meetings—and each step in this process is to be 

documented in the TIGER application evaluation database. However, 

these procedures are not described as part of the formal process in 

DOT’s revised application evaluation guidelines, and the extent to which 

they have been applied has not yet been evaluated. DOT announced its 

TIGER VI funding decisions on September 12, 2014. We will review 

DOT’s TIGER VI application evaluation and project selection process to 

assess whether DOT has adequately addressed the May 2014 

recommendations. 
 

Page 16 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

Our review of 20 selected TIGER projects from the first four funding 

rounds found that DOT has leveraged investments from state and local 

government agencies for almost one-half of the total costs of the projects 

reviewed.26 Local funding—including investments from county, city 

governments, or transit agencies—comprised the largest share of nonfederal contributions committed by grantees to these 20 projects (see 

appendix III). However, DOT is not required to aggregate and report nonfederal investment leveraged by TIGER and the total amount leveraged is 

unknown. DOT has also taken measures to address other TIGER 

program objectives, including statutory requirements to (1) ensure an 

equitable geographic distribution of funds, (2) meet minimum funding 

requirements for projects in rural areas, and (3) invest in a variety of 

transportation modes.

For the 20 projects we reviewed, non-federal investments accounted for 

about half of the total project costs. In each TIGER appropriation, 

Congress directed DOT to prioritize projects that required federal funds to 

complete an overall financing package—a provision that could encourage 

non-federal investments in transportation infrastructure. Based on our 

analysis of grant agreements for the 20 TIGER projects we reviewed, 48 

percent of the total project costs (almost $1.5 billion) was funded by state, 

local, and other funding sources and the remainder was funded by a 

combination of TIGER grants and other federal funding sources, see table 

2. In comparison, generally, the matching-share requirement for many 

highway and transit formula-grant programs is 80 percent in federal 

funding and 20 percent in state or local funds.27 For example, as we have 

previously reported, FTA’s New Starts capital program may provide up to 

80 percent of a project’s total funding; however, the actual federal share 

is typically much lower because FTA encourages applicants to seek less 

than 60 percent federal funding.28

 

26For purposes of this report, we define leveraging to broadly mean the combining of 

multiple sources of funds, including other federal, state, local, and private funds to finance 

a project. As such, TIGER grants may serve as the impetus for additional non-federal 

investment or as a complementary funding source for a project.

27However, for projects on the Interstate System, the federal share can be up to 95 

percent. 23 U.S.C. § 120.

28GAO, Public Transit: Funding for New Starts and Small Starts Projects, October 2004 

through June 2012, GAO-13-40 (Washington, D.C.: November 2012).

DOT Has Leveraged 

Non-Federal 

Investment through 

Selected TIGER 

Projects and Taken 

Steps to Address 

Other Program 

Objectives

Selected TIGER Projects 

Have Leveraged 

Investments from State 

and Local Governments,

but Total Non-Federal 

Amounts Leveraged Are 

Not Known
 

Page 17 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

Table 2: Federal, State, Local, and Other Funding Sources for 20 Selected TIGER 

Grant Agreements, TIGER I (2009) through TIGER IV (2012)

Funding 

sources 

Total funds in

grant agreement

(in millions)

Percentage of

total estimated

project costs

Federal TIGER Amount $438 30

Other Federal 334 23

State 162 11

Local 496 34

Other non-federala 40 3 

Total $1,470 100

Source: GAO analysis of 20 selected TIGER grant agreements. | GAO-14-766

Notes: TIGER refers to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) 

discretionary grant program. Percentage totals may not add to 100 percent due to rounding.

a

The source of the other non-federal funding includes private sector contributions and bond revenues.

Local funding, including investments from county or city governments or 

local transit authorities, comprised a substantial share (34 percent) of the 

total project cost for the 20 projects we reviewed. For example, DOT 

awarded the Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority (Sound Transit) $10 

million in the TIGER III (2011) funding round to extend its light rail line 

from the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to an economically 

disadvantaged area south of Seattle. Through its grant agreement, Sound 

Transit committed to provide $219 million in local funding for the project, 

which is estimated to cost $238 million to complete. The project’s local 

funding was raised through local sales and motor-vehicle excise taxes 

and Sound Transit bond revenues. With an additional $4.3 million in other 

federal funding applied to the project, the federal share is 6 percent of the 

project’s total estimated cost.29

Both urban and rural projects we reviewed contributed more non-federal 

investment to their projects than the TIGER program required. Since 

fiscal year 2010 (TIGER II), Congress has required that projects in urban 

areas contribute at least 20 percent of the total project’s funding from 

 

29Although the grant to Sound Transit accounts for 44 percent of the $496 million of local 

funding committed to the 20 projects, excluding this project, local funding would be 23 

percent of the total project cost and still represent the largest portion of non-federal 

funding committed by the remaining 19 projects. 
 

Page 18 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

non-federal sources.30

Table 3: TIGER Funding for 20 Selected Projects, by Urban and Rural Projects and Type, TIGER I (2009) through TIGER IV 

(2012)

The costs of the14 urban projects in our review 

range from $16 million to $243 million, with a total cost of $1.35 billion—of 

which state, local, or private sources funded 49 percent; federal sources, 

including TIGER, funded 51 percent. TIGER projects in rural areas may 

receive up to 100 percent federal funding, but 5 of the 6 rural projects we 

reviewed contributed state, local, or other non-federal funds, including 

private revenues. The 6 rural projects are expected to cost $117 million 

according to their grant agreements, of which 33 percent is funded by 

non-federal sources, and 67 percent is from federal sources. Table 3 

provides information on the 20 selected projects and the shares provided 

by the various funding sources. 

Project type

Urban

TIGER awards

Rural

TIGER awards

All 20

TIGER awards

# (in millions) # (in millions) # (in millions)

Road 5 $131 3 $47 8 $178

Rail 3 76 1 15 4 91

Transit 5 144 — —- 5 144

Port — —- 1 $12 1 12

Bicycle & pedestrian 1 10 1 $3 2 13

TIGER awards totals 14 $362 6 $76 20 $438

Total project costs $1,354 $117 $1,471

Total % federal share 51% 67% 52%

Source: GAO analysis of 20 selected TIGER Grant agreements | GAO-14-766

Notes: TIGER refers to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) 

discretionary grant program.

Award amounts for project types may not add to total due to rounding.

The rural projects we examined contributed less non-federal funding than 

urban projects, but contributions from rural localities can represent 

substantial investments for these grantees. For example, DOT awarded a 

$5 million TIGER IV (2012) grant to the West Virginia Division of 

Highways to reconstruct the main street of the rural City of Ranson to 

encourage economic development in the town center and connect it with 

 

30The Recovery Act allowed applicants to receive up to 100 percent federal funding. Pub. 

L. No. 111-5.
 

Page 19 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

new development outside of the town. The budget for the project, as of 

December 2013, was $9.9 million, with West Virginia Department of 

Transportation contributing $2.5 million and the City of Ranson 

contributing $2.2 million to the project. According to city officials, this 

contribution represents almost half of the city’s general fund budget for 

2013.31

Although DOT has leveraged non-federal investments in the TIGER 

projects we reviewed, DOT is not required to and does not aggregate and 

report the amount of non-federal investment leveraged by the TIGER 

program. As such, the total amount leveraged through the program is 

unknown. DOT reported in its TIGER V (2013) award announcement that 

the $474 million awarded that round supported approximately $1.8 billion 

in overall project investment. However, that figure is based on information 

in the projects’ applications and does not account for additional federal 

funds used by projects that would need to be considered to assess the 

total non-federal investment leveraged by TIGER. Furthermore, using 

information in project applications to calculate the funding leveraged 

through TIGER is not reliable because project scope and funding sources 

can change in the time between announcing an award and finalizing the 

grant agreement. For example, the total cost of the Chicago Transit 

Authority’s TIGER IV (2012) project to expand a subway station and 

adjacent bus terminal south of Chicago increased from $140 million—

when the application was submitted in March 2012—to $240 million in 

September 2013, when the grant agreement was finalized.32 DOT officials 

told us that the amount of state, local, or private funding to be contributed 

in an application is a factor in its selection decisions, and that it monitors 

these sources of funding in individual grant agreements to ensure funds 

are being used for their intended purposes. However, DOT does not 

aggregate and report the funding amounts leveraged through the TIGER 

program, in part because of the difficulties in accounting for changes in 

individual project scope and funding that may occur over project lifecycles. 

 

31City of Ranson officials told us that the neighboring City of Charles Town, West Virginia, 

is also contributing $200,000 to the project.

32CTA officials reported that the cost increase was due to a design change in the location 

of the terminal, as building on the original planned location was found to be infeasible. 
 

Page 20 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

Since the initial TIGER funding round (2009), legislation has required that 

DOT take measures to ensure an equitable geographic distribution of 

funds.33

Because of this goal, the share of TIGER funding awarded to each region 

does not necessarily reflect each region’s share of the U.S. population. 

For example, in the TIGER III funding round, DOT established that as a 

proportion of its population, the South region’s target award amount 

would be $170 million, or 33 percent of the $511 million available that 

round. To remain within 25 percent of the South region’s target, DOT 

determined that it could award as little as $128 million or as much as 

$213 million. Ultimately, DOT awarded $142 million to 12 projects in the 

South, an amount that was within the 25 percent range but almost $30 

million less than the region’s funding target. Due to such variations in 

funding over the first 5 funding rounds, the South region has received a 

smaller share of the total TIGER funding (27 percent) than its relative 

share of U.S. population (33 percent). Overall, DOT has awarded 

between 22 and 27 percent of program funds to each of the four regions, 

with the South region receiving the most awards and the largest amount 

of program funds and the East region receiving the fewest awards and 

the smallest share of funds (see table 4).

In accordance with the requirement, DOT has used the same 

approach since the first round by (1) dividing the United States into 4 

geographic regions (Central, East, South, and West) and (2) setting 

funding targets based on each region’s share of the overall U.S. 

population. In DOT’s system, the South is the largest region with 33 

percent of the population, the West and Central each have 23 percent, 

and the East region has 20 percent. DOT officials told us that, to provide 

some flexibility in allocating funding according to region, DOT also sets a 

goal of awarding funds to each region within 25 percent of each region’s 

target funding amount.

 

33Pub. L. No. 111-5, 123 Stat. 204.

DOT Has Taken Steps to 

Equitably Distribute Funds 

According to Geography 

and Meet Other Program 

Objectives

Equitable Geographic 

Distribution of Funds
 

Page 21 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

Table 4: TIGER Grant Award Amounts, by Region and Population Share, TIGER I 

(2009) through TIGER V (2013)

Region

Number of

awardees

Amount of

funds awarded

(in millions)

Percentage of 

funds awarded

Percentage 

share of U.S. 

population

South 72 $942 27 33

Central 67 908 26 23

West 71 898 a 25 23

East 61 789 22 20

Total 271 $3,537 100 100

Source: GAO analysis of DOT TIGER data. | GAO-14-766

Notes: TIGER refers to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) 

discretionary grant program.

Percentage totals may not add to 100 due to rounding.

a

Although DOT awarded 71 projects to the West region from fiscal years 2009 through 2013, it did not 

obligate $10 million in 2010 funding to one of those projects (San Bernardino Airport Access Project) 

after learning that two of the project sponsors were under federal investigation. DOT reallocated the 

$10 million award amount among four other projects that were awarded grants in 2010.

DOT has also taken steps to address the statutory requirements included 

in each appropriation since fiscal year 2010 to award at least minimum 

amounts to projects in rural areas—defined by DOT as any area not in an 

urbanized area.34 The Recovery Act did not establish minimum amounts 

for projects in rural areas for the 2009 funding round; DOT awarded the 

smallest percentage of funding to rural projects in that round (about 7 

percent of the $1.5 billion appropriated) compared with later rounds which 

included minimum funding requirements for rural areas. For example, in 

fiscal year 2012 (TIGER IV), DOT was required to ensure that at least 

$120 million of the $500 million appropriated was awarded to projects 

located in rural areas.35

 

34DOT’s TIGER V NOFA defines a rural area as any area not in an urbanized area 

(50,000 or more people), as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau for 2010. DOT also 

considers “urban clusters,” or areas with at least 2,500 and less than 50,000 people, to be 

rural areas for purposes of the TIGER Discretionary Grant program. DOT considers a 

project to be in a rural area if all or the majority of project funding is spent in a rural area.

DOT funded 19 rural projects that year worth 

$128 million. Cumulatively across the first five TIGER rounds, DOT has 

awarded grants to 100 rural projects totaling $649 million, or 18 percent of 

the total of more than $3.5 billion awarded to date. See Table 5.

35Pub. L. No. 112-55, 125 Stat. 641.

Minimum Funding 

Requirements for Projects in 

Rural Areas
 

Page 22 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

Table 5: Statutory Requirements for Funding Projects in Rural Areas and Grants Awarded, TIGER I (2009) through TIGER V 

(2013)

TIGER round 

(fiscal year)

Statutory requirement

for rural projects

Amount

awarded to rural

projects (in millions)

Number of

rural projects

Percentage of TIGER 

funds awarded

to rural projects

TIGER I (2009) None $104 8 7 

TIGER II (2010) Not less than $140 million 143 28 25 a

TIGER III (2011) Not less than $140 million 150 20 29

TIGER IV (2012) Not less than $120 million 128 19 26

TIGER V (2013) Not less than $120 million 123 25 27

TOTAL N/A $649 100 18

Source: GAO analysis of DOT TIGER data. | GAO-14-766

Notes: TIGER refers to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) 

discretionary grant program.

a

Includes 11 planning grants for rural areas with a total value of $6.1 million.

DOT has taken steps to address the statutory requirement included in its 

TIGER appropriations since fiscal year 2010 to invest TIGER funding in a 

variety of transportation modes by funding a diverse portfolio of road, rail, 

transit, port, and bicycle and pedestrian projects over the first five funding 

rounds. According to DOT data, one-third of TIGER funding in the first 5 

rounds has been awarded to road projects, which include improvements, 

repairs or new construction for bridges, highways, or other roads. 

Transit—including bus, light rail, street car, and multi-modal transit station 

projects—has received more than one-fourth of the funding, and those 

projects received on average the largest awards. Rail projects, including 

freight and passenger rail projects, have received less than a quarter of 

total funding. Port and bicycle and pedestrian projects have received 

about 11 and 4 percent of the total funding, respectively. See Table 6.

Investing in a Variety of 

Transportation Modes
 

Page 23 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

Table 6: Amounts Awarded to Different Project Types, TIGER I (2009) to TIGER V 

(2013)

Project Type

Amount 

Awarded

(in millions)

Number of 

Projects 

Average 

Award Amount

(in millions)

Percentage of 

Total Funding 

Awarded

Road $1,149 98 $11.7 33

Transit 987 48 20.6 28

Rail 809 48 16.8 23

Port 401 31 12.9 11

Bicycle and Pedestrian 154 12 12.8 4 

Total $3,500 237 a $14.8 100

Source: GAO analysis of DOT data. | GAO-14-766

Notes: TIGER refers to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) 

discretionary grant program.

Percentage totals may not add to 100 percent due to rounding.

a

This amount does not include the 33 planning grants for $27.6 million awarded in TIGER II.

Although road projects comprise the largest share of funded projects, 

many projects are multi-modal and may provide benefits for several 

transportation modes. For example, in TIGER V, 15 of the 52 projects 

awarded involved 2 transportation modes, and 6 described benefits for 

users of 3 different modes. Eleven of the 20 road projects awarded grants 

in TIGER V also described specific improvements for bicyclists and 

pedestrians. For example, 7 of the road projects are described as 

“complete street” improvements, which are generally designed to be used 

for driving, bicycling, walking, and public transportation, and intended to 

enhance economic development opportunities for communities.

At Congress’s direction, DOT has prioritized certain project types in some 

funding rounds, and DOT has also applied its own discretion for how it 

distributes TIGER funding among the various transportation modes. For 

example, in the conference report accompanying the fiscal year 2010 

DOT appropriation, Congress urged DOT to consider innovative projects 

that support investment in inland ports and freight rail projects.36

 

36H.R. Rep. No. 111–366, at 380 (2009).

During 

that round, DOT awarded $181 million to 13 projects with port or freight

rail components, including projects in inland locations in Kansas, 

Nebraska, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota. DOT has also 
 

Page 24 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

established priorities for funding certain types of projects. In the TIGER IV 

NOFA, DOT set aside up to $100 million of that round’s $500 million 

available for high-speed and intercity passenger-rail projects, and DOT 

officials told us that DOT awarded at total of $61 million to 4 projects 

aimed at improving future access to high speed rail.37

DOT has taken steps to measure the performance of individual projects 

by establishing key measures and periodic reporting requirements for 

each grantee. During the grant agreement development process, Policy 

Office and modal administration officials work with the grantee to develop 

several (generally 3 to 5) performance measures intended to be 

indicators of a project’s success. According to DOT officials and several 

grantees we interviewed, DOT works with grantees to identify appropriate 

performance measures for individual projects using a standardized list of 

measures devised by the Policy Office. These measures are based on 

industry standard measures for road, rail, and other transportation 

projects, according to DOT. DOT officials told us that the performance 

measures are intended to measure project results—such as the usage, or 

level-of-service achieved by a transportation asset—and not intended to 

assess progress made in constructing or completing the project, which is 

seen to through the modal administrations’ grant oversight procedures. 

DOT requires grantees to report periodically on their measures before 

 

37According to DOT officials, those projects were Raleigh Union Station Phase I ($21 

million), the Sacramento Valley Station ($15 million), the Rochester Intermodal 

Transportation Center ($15 million), and the Newark Regional Transportation Center ($10 

million). DOT officials said that other multimodal projects funded that round might feature 

limited intercity passenger-rail benefits as well. 

DOT Has Taken 

Steps to Measure 

TIGER Project 

Performance, but 

Does Not Assess 

Overall Program 

Performance

Performance Reports 

Provide Information on 

Individual Projects, but 

Measures Often Do Not 

Link to TIGER Long-term 

Outcomes
 

Page 25 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

constructing the project to establish baseline measures of performance in 

“pre-project reports,” and must report the results of those measures for a 

period of 3 to 5 years after completing projects in “project performance 

reports.” Finally, at the end of the TIGER grant period, grantees must 

submit a “project outcome report” to describe project outcomes in relation 

to baselines in the pre-project report.

Many projects have begun submitting their required reports to DOT. As of 

February 2014—the most recent data available during our review—114 of 

the 186 TIGER capital project grantees awarded funds from TIGER I 

(2009) through TIGER IV (2012) had submitted their pre-project reports.38

During the course of our review, none of the 186 projects awarded TIGER 

capital grants from the first four rounds had reached a state of completion 

where the final reporting requirement, a project outcome report, is due. 

Table 7 describes the required TIGER performance reports and the 

grantees’ progress in submitting them.

 

38The submission deadlines for the pre-project and other performance reports vary 

according to each grant agreement and, therefore, the reports for many grantees—

particularly for later funding rounds—may not yet be due. One grantee included in our 

sample of 20 projects submitted its pre-project report in March 2014, and that report is 

included in our review of the performance measures in this report. 
 

Page 26 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

Table 7: Status of Grantees Awarded Capital Projects in TIGER I (2009) through TIGER IV (2012) in Submitting Required 

Performance Reports to DOT, as of February 2014

Performance report type Report description Status 

Pre-project reports Prior to construction, grantees must provide 

baseline data on the current levels of performance 

to provide measures to assess project outcomes. 

The pre-project report is to include a detailed 

description of data sources, assumptions, 

variability, and the estimated level of precision for 

each measure. 

114 of the 186 capital grantees from TIGER 

rounds I through IV had submitted pre-projects 

reports.

Project performance reports

a

When construction is complete and the project is 

operable, DOT requires TIGER grantees to report 

on the results of the performance measures in 

their grant agreements for a period of 3 to 5 years. 

43 of the 186 TIGER capital projects had 

substantially completed their construction.a

Project outcome reports

Of 

these, 13 projects had begun submitting their 

project performance measurement reports.

When the 3-to-5 year performance reporting 

requirement for the project is completed, DOT 

requires grantees to submit a project outcome 

report, which is intended to assess project 

outcomes in relation to baselines established in 

the pre-project report. 

None of the TIGER capital projects had reached 

the point where they are required to submit a 

project outcomes report.a

Source: GAO analyses of DOT grant agreements and DOT data. | GAO-14-766

 

a

The submission deadlines for the pre-project, project performance, and project outcome reports vary 

according to each grant agreement, and therefore, the reports for many grantees—particularly for 

later funding rounds—may not yet be due.

Of the 20 projects selected in our review, 15 had submitted pre-project 

reports to DOT at the time of our review. In this sample of 15 reports, 

project performance measures generally satisfied one of the three 

selected key attributes of successful performance measures—clarity—but 

not the remaining two—linkage to program goals, and measurable 

targets.39

• Clarity. Overall, we found that 67 of the 95 (71 percent) project 

performance measures included in the 15 pre-project reports that we 

reviewed satisfied the clarity attribute. Prior GAO work notes that a 

 

39In prior work (GAO-03-143), GAO identified nine attributes of successful performance 

measures—linkage, clarity, measurable target, reliability, objectivity, governmentwide 

priorities, core program activities, balance, and limited overlap—which are discussed in 

appendix I. Our analysis focuses on the extent to which project performance measures 

satisfy three of these attributes—linkage, clarity, and measurable targets—which we 

determined were most applicable to our objective of assessing steps taken by DOT to 

assess overall TIGER program performance. See appendix I for a full discussion of our 

methodology.
 

Page 27 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

performance measure achieves clarity when it is clearly stated and 

the name and definition are consistent with the methodology used for 

calculating the measure.40 If measures are not clear, the collected 

data could be confusing and misleading to users. Through its grant 

agreements, DOT requires TIGER grantees to submit with their preproject report a detailed description of data sources, assumptions, 

and the estimated level of precision for each measure—a requirement 

that helps ensure that measures are clearly stated. For example, The 

Maine Department of Transportation, which received a $10.8 million 

TIGER III (2011) grant to replace a structurally deficient bridge over 

the Kennebec River, must report the annual maintenance and 

operations costs of the bridge before its reconstruction and annually 

for 5 years after its construction, among other measures. The 

grantee’s pre-project report includes a discussion of its data sources 

and assumptions for calculating the actual annual maintenance costs 

to the bridge in the past 10-years, as well as an estimate of the 

variability in costs from year to year, and the confidence interval for its 

averaged annual costs. Such a performance measure, when 

compared with post-construction maintenance costs, can provide 

useful data to the grantee and to DOT on the project’s lifecycle costs 

and the cost effectiveness of the bridge replacement compared with 

the estimated annual maintenance costs of continuing repairs to the 

old bridge.

• Linkage to long-term outcomes: We found that the majority of the 

performance measures in the 15 pre-project reports did not clearly link 

to one of the five TIGER programs’ long-term outcomes of state-of 

good repair, economic competitiveness, livability, environmental 

sustainability, and safety. Consequently, those measures are not 

particularly useful in assessing a project’s effectiveness in achieving 

overall TIGER program outcomes. According to prior GAO work, a 

performance measure exhibits linkage when it is aligned with division 

and agencywide goals and mission and clearly communicated 

throughout the organization.41

 

40

When performance measures do not 

link to agency goals, behaviors and incentives created by measures 

may not support achieving division or agencywide goals or mission. 

Of the 95 performance measures included in the 15 pre-project 

reports that we reviewed, 16 (17 percent) clearly linked to a TIGER 

GAO-03-143. 

41GAO-03-143. 
 

Page 28 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

program long-term outcome and could reasonably be used to indicate 

progress toward meeting one of the outcomes. Five of the 15 preproject reports we reviewed did not have any performance measures 

that clearly linked to one of the five long-term outcomes. Of these 

outcomes, we found that performance measures most commonly 

linked to safety and livability outcomes, including safety measures 

such as reductions in collisions or crashes, or livability measures such 

as increasing access to bicycle or pedestrian facilities. State-of-good 

repair and economic competiveness were the outcomes that least 

frequently linked to the performance measures included in the preproject reports we reviewed. Specifically, we identified only 2 

measures that clearly linked to state-of-good repair by measuring an 

asset’s physical condition or maintenance costs, and only 1 measure 

that clearly linked to the economic competiveness outcome by 

measuring the economic costs of lost capacity due to needed repairs.

Policy Office officials told us that most of the project performance 

measures are designed to gather information on the usage, 

operations, safety, or state-of-good repair of the transportation asset, 

but not intended to specifically reflect each of the TIGER long-term 

outcomes or to demonstrate progress in achieving these outcomes. 

DOT officials also stated that measuring progress toward a long-term 

outcome such as economic competiveness would require additional 

analysis that would need to consider other factors, such as population 

and national trends. However, without clear linkage between an 

individual project’s performance measures and the TIGER program’s 

long-term outcomes, DOT lacks information to assess whether 

projects are achieving the TIGER program’s goals and to assess 

which projects represent the best investment toward those goals. 

Furthermore, in 2012, the DOT Inspector General found that DOT has 

not established a process for evaluating the TIGER program’s 

performance based on project outcomes. The Inspector General 

recommended that DOT establish a methodology to identify program 

outcomes from grantee performance data and to assess the overall 

impact of the TIGER program.42

 

42U.S. DOT, Office of the Inspector General, DOT Established Timely Controls for the 

TIGER Discretionary Grants Program, But Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Oversight, 

MH-2012-188 (Washington, D.C., Sept. 20, 2012).

DOT reported in its Strategic Plan for 

Fiscal Years 2012–2016 that it would report on the feasibility of using 

TIGER project performance measures to assess program outcomes 

by December 2013, but had yet to make this information available as 
 

Page 29 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

of July 2014. DOT officials told us that they are still working to refine 

their methodology in response to the Inspector General’s 

recommendation.

• Measurable targets: Only 1 of the 95 performance measures we 

reviewed in the 15 pre-project reports included a measurable target by 

which to assess project performance—another important attribute of 

successful performance measures.43 Leading practices in federal 

agency performance management previously identified by GAO state 

that where appropriate, performance measures should have 

quantifiable, numerical targets and that agencies could use baselines 

to set realistic but challenging targets.44 Numerical targets facilitate 

future assessments of whether overall goals and objectives were 

achieved because comparisons can be easily made between 

projected performance and actual results. DOT officials told us that 

DOT has not established measurable performance targets for TIGER 

grantees because the success of a transportation project depends on 

many external factors, and setting targets for all projects is neither 

feasible nor beneficial for the program because it would not 

encourage grantees to submit useful and reliable data. Nonetheless, 

two TIGER project grantees told us that their performance-reporting 

requirements were not onerous because they already collected similar 

information either for internal performance-measurement purposes or 

to meet reporting requirements for other federal grants. Grantees’ 

existing performance data may be of use in establishing reasonable 

numerical targets that, if appropriately set, could create motivation for 

improving program performance. Without such targets, as well as 

related data and analysis, DOT has no basis to judge whether the 

reported performance meets expectations or achieves intended 

project goals.

Although DOT has established performance measures for individual 

projects, it does not assess the performance of the overall TIGER 

program in achieving the program’s goals. The five TIGER program longterm outcomes—state-of-good repair, economic competitiveness, 

 

43The pre-project report submitted for the Port of Brownsville project, which was awarded 

funds in TIGER IV (2012), includes a measure of the number of vessels waiting for 

berthing each month, with a target of zero. 

44GAO-03-143, also see GAO, Managing for Results: Strengthening Regulatory Agencies’ 

Performance Management Practices, GGD-00-10 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 28, 1999).

DOT Does Not Assess the 

Performance of the 

Overall TIGER Program
 

Page 30 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

livability, environmental sustainability, and safety—represent general 

goals for the program and reflect the five strategic goals published in 

DOT’s Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2012–2016. DOT has established 

performance measures at the departmental level for its five strategic 

goals and published its progress in meeting those goals in its annual 

performance plans, as required by the Government Performance and 

Results Act (GPRA) of 1993, as amended.45 For example, DOT has 

departmental performance goals and measures (1) for safety (including 

targets for reducing road, rail, and transit fatalities); (2) for economic 

competitiveness (such as maintaining or improving travel time reliability 

on significant freight corridors and in urban areas); and (3) for DOT’s 

three other strategic goals that serve as long-term TIGER outcomes.46

However, because DOT’s performance measures for individual projects 

do not clearly link to the five long-term outcomes that serve as TIGER 

program goals and DOT’s overall strategic goals, DOT has no 

mechanism to assess the TIGER program’s progress in achieving these 

goals. In prior work on federal agencies’ use of performance measures, 

we found that an agency should cascade its goals and objectives 

throughout the organization and align performance measures to the 

objectives from the executive level down to the operational levels.47

 

45GPRA Modernization Act of 2010, Pub. L. No. 111-352, 124 Stat. 3866 (2011). Since 

1993, Congress has required federal agencies through GPRA to develop strategic plans 

with long-term, outcome-oriented goals and objectives, annual goals linked to achieving 

the long-term goals, and annual reports on the results achieved. GAO, Results-Oriented 

Government: GPRA Has Established a Solid Foundation for Achieving Greater Results, 

This 

alignment increases the usefulness of the performance information 

collected to decision makers at each level, and reinforces the connection 

between strategic goals and the day-to-day activities of managers and 

staff.

GAO-04-38 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 10, 2004) The GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 

amended GPRA to, among other things, create a governmentwide planning and reporting 

framework, including federal government priority goals, performance plans, quarterly 

priority progress reviews, and a governmentwide performance website. GAO, Managing 

for Results: Opportunities for Congress to Address Government Performance Issues, 

GAO-12-215R (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 9, 2011).

46U.S. DOT, Annual Performance Plan, Fiscal Year 2014 (Washington, D.C., January 

2013). 

47GAO, Managing for Results: Enhancing Agency Use of Performance Information for 

Management Decision Making, GAO-05-927 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 9, 2005). 
 

Page 31 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

DOT officials told us that given the wide range of projects funded by 

TIGER and the unique nature of the individual projects, it might not be 

possible to assess the impact of the overall TIGER program. However, 

DOT has established performance measures for the department’s five 

strategic goals—which mirror the five TIGER long-term outcomes—and 

has reported those measures in DOT’s annual performance plan. In 

addition, federal highway and transit programs are generally becoming 

more performance focused as DOT and its grantees implement the 

performance-based approach contained in MAP-21. For example, for 

highways, DOT is establishing performance measures around seven 

identified national performance goals, and states and grantees will be 

required in the years ahead to establish performance targets for those 

measures and report their progress in achieving these targets. The DOT 

appropriations acts that provide funding for the TIGER program do not 

include a specific requirement that DOT report on performance of the 

overall TIGER program. However, DOT officials told us that when 

additional project-performance data are available across multiple rounds, 

DOT will be in a better position to aggregate and analyze the data across 

multiple projects. Although performance reporting is not required for the 

program, setting performance goals and measuring progress in achieving 

program goals are leading management practices and important internal 

controls for government programs.48 Without such performance 

information, DOT cannot assess whether the TIGER program is achieving 

its intended results or the effectiveness of DOT’s funded projects in 

meeting TIGER program long-term outcomes. As our past work has 

shown, such performance information can also be valuable to inform 

congressional decisions for funding and oversight of federal programs. 

For example, prior GAO work shows that performance information can be 

used by Congress to inform decisions about authorizing or reauthorizing 

federal programs, to set clear expectations for agency performance, and 

to provide consistent oversight over a sustained period of time, such as 

by requiring agencies to routinely report progress in achieving goals.49

 

48According to GAO’s Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, in a 

performance-based management system, management establishes program objectives 

and performance measures and monitors and compares actual performance to planned or 

expected results. GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1. 

49GAO, Managing for Results: A Guide for Using the GPRA Modernization Act to Help 

Inform Congressional Decision Making, GAO-12-621SP (Washington, D.C.: June 15, 

2012). Also see GAO-12-215R. 
 

Page 32 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

Since 2009, Congress has appropriated over $4 billion to DOT to 

competitively award TIGER grants for surface transportation projects 

intended to have a significant impact on the nation, a region, or a 

metropolitan area. In 2011, we concluded that it was critical that DOT 

gain the confidence of Congress and the public and demonstrate it can 

fairly and expertly administer a multi-modal, multi-billion dollar 

discretionary program. However, a continued lack of documentation of 

key decisions, as we found in the first and the fifth funding rounds, can 

give rise to challenges to the integrity of the evaluation process and leave 

DOT vulnerable to criticism concerning the rationale for the decisions 

made. Although DOT is taking efforts to establish additional accountability 

measures for the TIGER program in response to recommendations we 

made in May 2014, it is too early to tell whether those actions will fully 

address the concerns we raised. We will continue to monitor DOT’s 

efforts to address our recommendations by reviewing DOT’s recently 

announced TIGER VI funding decisions. Establishing additional 

accountability measures could create a strong foundation on which to 

ensure public and congressional trust in the program and transparency 

for its funding decisions.

DOT deserves credit for taking the initiative to measure the performance 

of individual TIGER projects. However, many TIGER project performance 

measures do not clearly link with the TIGER program’s long-term 

outcomes or include measurable targets. As result, DOT does not have a 

framework in place to assess the performance of the overall TIGER 

program in achieving the program’s long-term outcomes, or a basis to 

judge whether TIGER projects meet performance expectations and 

deliver sufficient results for the federal investment. The TIGER program 

represents an important opportunity for DOT to establish performancebased links between surface transportation funding and program 

outcomes, similar to MAP-21’s emphasis on performance measurement.

However, because DOT does not assess the overall performance of the 

TIGER program, Congress lacks information on whether the amounts 

invested in the program have had their intended impact on the nation’s 

transportation infrastructure—information that could be useful when 

making future funding decisions.

To help inform future funding decisions for the TIGER program, we 

recommend that the Secretary of Transportation develop clear linkages 

between project performance measures and the program’s goals, and 

include measurable targets, so that DOT can better measure and report 

Conclusions

Recommendation for 

Executive Action
 

Page 33 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

on the performance of the program and its funded projects in meeting its 

established long-term outcomes.

We provided DOT with a draft of this report for its review and comment. 

DOT provided a technical comment via e-mail, which we incorporated. 

DOT also provided written comments, reproduced in appendix IV, in 

which the Department reiterated its written comments to our May 2014 

letter. DOT stated that during the 2014 funding round it required better

documentation of project selection decisions and established procedures 

for advancing projects other than those rated as highly recommended, 

among other actions. We will continue to monitor DOT’s implementation 

of our May 2014 recommendations to determine whether they have been 

addressed. In response to our recommendation in this report, DOT 

agreed to improve performance measurement for the TIGER program. 

Specifically, DOT stated it will work to improve reporting of TIGER longterm outcomes to demonstrate whether the program is meeting its goals. 

We are sending copies of this report to appropriate congressional 

committees. In addition, the report is available at no charge on the GAO 

website at http://www.gao.gov. If you or your staff have any questions 

about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-2834 or 

flemings@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional 

Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. 

GAO staff who contributed to this report are listed in appendix V.

Sincerely yours,

Susan Fleming

Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues

Agency Comments
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 34 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

Our three objectives were to assess: (1) changes made by the 

Department of Transportation (DOT) to its procedures for evaluating 

applications and selecting projects for grants in the Transportation 

Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program, in 

response to our May 2014 letter;1

To assess the changes made by DOT to its TIGER application evaluation 

and project selection procedures, we compared the written procedures in 

DOT’s Fiscal Year 2014 TIGER Discretionary Grant Program: Guidelines 

for Evaluation of Applications to the recommendations from our May 2014 

letter. In that letter, we recommended that the Secretary of Transportation

establish additional accountability measures for management of the 

TIGER program to establish clear procedures for addressing late-arriving 

applications and communicate management’s decisions to either accept 

or reject these applications to the public. We also recommended that 

DOT document and approve major decisions in the application evaluation 

and project selection process through a decision memorandum or similar 

mechanism that provides a clear rationale for decisions to: (a) advance 

for senior review applications other than those rated as highly 

recommended; (b) not advance applications rated as highly 

recommended; and (c) change the technical evaluation rating of an 

application.

(2) the extent to which DOT has 

leveraged non-federal transportation investment through TIGER and met 

other selected program objectives, and (3) steps DOT has taken to 

measure the performance of the overall TIGER program.

2

To assess the extent to which DOT has leveraged non-federal 

investments through TIGER, we reviewed the funding sources stipulated 

in the grant agreements of a non-generalizable sample of 20 TIGER 

projects funded in the first four funding rounds. We selected these 

projects using criteria including project type and geographic region, and 

At the time of our review, DOT was in the process of 

evaluating applications for its fiscal year 2014 (TIGER VI) funding round. 

As such, we did not assess the results of the TIGER VI application 

evaluation process, or the extent to which DOT applied its revised 

procedures in the TIGER VI funding round.

 

1

GAO, Surface Transportation: Actions Needed to Improve Documentation of Key 

Decisions in the TIGER Discretionary Grant Program, GAO-14-628R (Washington, D.C.: 

May 28, 2014). 

2

GAO-14-628R. 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 35 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

whether the project was located in an urban or rural area. We used the 

funding-source information in the 20 grant agreements to calculate the 

amount of federal, state, local, private, and any other funds committed for 

the completion of each project. For purposes of this report, we define 

leveraging to broadly mean the combining of multiple sources of funds—

including other federal, state, local, and private funds—to finance a 

project. As such, TIGER grants may serve as the impetus for additional 

non-federal investment or as a complementary funding source for a 

project. To estimate the extent to which TIGER funds leveraged nonfederal investments, we compared the total amount of TIGER funding 

applied to the 20 projects with the total amount of other state, local, or 

private funds committed in the grant agreements. This approach 

compares the share of TIGER funds with the share of funds from other 

sources, but does not assess the extent to which TIGER funds attracted 

or were the impetus for additional non-federal investments. We did not 

include projects in our sample that were only awarded TIGER funds in 

order to pay the subsidy and administrative costs of projects funded 

under DOT’s Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act 

(TIFIA) program. The TIFIA program provides federal credit assistance to 

finance surface transportation projects of national and regional 

significance. To gather information on the funding sources committed for 

the projects, we conducted interviews and site visits with 5 of the 20 

selected TIGER grantees. We selected the five projects for site visits to 

reflect a range of project types including road (1), transit (2); bicycle (1); 

and a combined port/rail project. We also interviewed DOT officials in the 

Office of the Secretary of Transportation, which leads the TIGER 

program, and officials in the four modal administrations that administer 

TIGER grants: Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Federal Transit 

Administration (FTA), Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), and the 

Maritime Administration (MARAD).

To assess the extent to which DOT has met other selected TIGER 

program objectives, we reviewed the statutory requirements for the 

awarding of TIGER grants in the first five funding rounds—TIGER I (2009) 
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 36 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

through TIGER V (2013).3

To evaluate the steps DOT has taken to measure performance of the 

overall TIGER program, we reviewed TIGER program documents and 

grant agreements and conducted interviews with DOT officials and the 

five grantees with whom we met on site visits. Through these efforts, we 

learned that DOT measures performance on a project-by-project basis. 

To assess whether this approach would be useful in assessing the 

performance of the overall TIGER program, we reviewed recognized 

internal control practices for federal agencies,

Our review focused on statutory requirements 

that DOT (1) take measures to ensure an equitable geographic 

distribution of funds; (2) award at least certain minimum amounts to 

projects in rural areas in the various funding rounds; and (3) invest TIGER 

funding in a variety of transportation modes. We selected these 

requirements to provide descriptive information on how TIGER funding 

has been awarded in the first five rounds. To assess the steps taken by 

DOT to meet these requirements, we compared DOT’s grant awards for 

the TIGER I (2009) through TIGER V (2013) funding rounds with the 

specific statutory requirements in the DOT’s appropriations for those 

funding rounds.

4

 

3

The statutory requirements are in DOT’s appropriations providing funding for the TIGER 

program from fiscal year 2009 through 2014: Pub. L. No. 111-5, 123 Stat. at 203-04 

(2009) (TIGER I, 2009); Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010, Pub. L. No. 111-117, 123 

Stat. 3034, 3036 (2009) (TIGER II, 2010); Department of Defense and Full-Year 

Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011, Pub. L. No. 112-10, 125 Stat. 191 (2011) (TIGER III, 

2011); Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2012, Pub. L. No. 112-55, 

125 Stat. 552, 641(2011) (TIGER IV, 2012); Consolidated and Further Continuing 

Appropriations Act, 2013, Pub. L. No. 113-6, 127 Stat. 198 (2013) (TIGER V, 2013). 

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014, Pub. L. No. 113-76, 128 Stat. 5, 574 (2014) 

(TIGER VI, 2014).

and evaluated the 

performance measures in required “pre-project performance reports” as 

submitted by the 20 selected projects as of March 2014. At the time of our 

review, 15 of the 20 selected grantees had submitted a pre-project 

performance report which is to provide baseline reporting of the 

performance measures in a grant agreement before a project is 

constructed. Four of the pre-project performance reports for the remaining 

5 grantees in our sample were not yet due to be submitted to DOT, and 

the fifth report was due but had yet to be finalized, according to the 

grantee. We reviewed the 95 performance measures and the 

4

GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1

(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 1999).
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 37 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

accompanying data available in the 15 pre-project performance reports. 

Where applicable and feasible, we assessed the extent to which the 

performance measures adhered to key attributes of successful 

performance measures, as defined by GAO.5

Table 8: GAO’s Key Attributes of Successful Performance Measures

Specifically, prior GAO work 

has identified nine attributes of successful performance measures. Based 

on the availability of the data provided in the pre-project performance 

reports, as discussed below, we selected three of the nine attributes for 

our review—linkage, clarity, and measurable targets. Table 8 shows the 

nine attributes, their definitions, and the potentially adverse 

consequences of performance measures not having the attributes.

Attribute Definition

Potentially adverse

consequences of not meeting attribute

Key attributes evaluated by reviewing performance measures individually

Linkage Measure is aligned with division and agency-wide goals 

and mission and clearly communicated throughout the 

organization. 

Behaviors and incentives created by measures do 

not support achieving division or agency-wide 

goals or mission. 

Clarity Measure is clearly stated, and the name and definition 

are consistent with the methodology used to calculate it.

Data could be confusing and misleading to users.

Measurable target Measure has a numerical goal. Cannot tell whether performance is meeting 

expectations.

Reliability Measure produces the same result under similar 

conditions.

Reported performance data is inconsistent and 

adds uncertainty.

Objectivity Measure is reasonably free from significant bias or 

manipulation.

Performance assessments may be systematically 

over- or understated.

Government-wide 

priorities

Each measure should cover a priority, such as quality, 

timeliness, and cost of service.

A program’s overall success is at risk if all 

priorities are not addressed.

Key attributes evaluated by reviewing performance measures as a set

Core program activities Measures cover the activities that an entity is expected 

to perform to support the intent of the program.

Not enough information available in core program 

areas to managers and stakeholders.

Balance Balance exists when a suite of measures ensures that 

an organization’s various priorities are covered.

Lack of balance could create skewed incentives 

when measures overemphasize some goals.

Limited overlap Measure should provide new information beyond that 

provided by other measures.

Managers may have to sort through redundant, 

costly information that does not add value.

Source: GAO-03-143, GAO-10-835. | GAO-14-766

 

5

GAO, Tax Administration: IRS Needs to Further Refine Its Tax Filing Season 

Performance Measures, GAO-03-143 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 22, 2002).
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 38 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

We selected the attributes of linkage, clarity, and measurable targets 

based on their relevance to our research objective and based on 

feasibility of assessing the performance measures by these attributes with 

the data available in the pre-project performance reports. Specifically, we 

determined that the linkage attribute was particularly relevant in 

assessing whether the TIGER project performance measures linked to 

any of the five TIGER long-term program outcomes—state-of good repair, 

economic competitiveness, livability, environmental sustainability, and 

safety—as defined in DOT’s TIGER V (2013) notice of funding 

availability.6

We also determined that, due to the early stage of many of the projects in 

our sample, and for other reasons, we did not have sufficient information 

from the pre-project performance reports to assess the performance 

measures according to the remaining 6 attributes of successful 

performance measures—reliability, objectivity, government-wide priorities, 

core program activities, balance, and limited overlap. Specifically, we 

determined that the baseline data in the pre-project reports did not 

provide sufficient detail to assess (1) reliability, or whether a measure 

would produce the same result under similar conditions, and (2) 

objectivity, or whether a measure is reasonably free from significant bias 

or manipulation. The “government-wide priorities” attribute—which covers 

issues such as quality, timeliness, or cost of service—would be 

particularly relevant to assessing the overall performance of the TIGER 

program. However, because the measures we reviewed were specific to 

Linkage to any of these outcomes would indicate whether the 

project’s performance measures could be useful in assessing the 

performance of the overall TIGER program in achieving its long-term 

outcomes. In reviewing the performance measures and available data in 

the pre-project performance reports, we determined that we would have 

sufficient data to assess the performance measures according to two 

other attributes—clarity, and measurable targets.

 

6

The TIGER V (2013) NOFA descriptions of the five long-term TIGER outcomes include: 

(1) State of Good Repair: improving the condition of existing transportation facilities and 

systems, with particular emphasis on projects that minimize lifecycle costs and improve 

resiliency; (2) Economic Competitiveness: contributing to the economic competitiveness of 

the United States over the medium- to long-term by improving the national transportation 

system while creating and preserving jobs; (3) Livability: increasing transportation choices 

and access to transportation services for people in communities across the United States; 

(4) Environmental Sustainability: improving energy efficiency, reducing dependence on oil, 

reducing greenhouse gas emissions and benefitting the environment; and (5) Safety: 

improving the safety of U.S. transportation facilities and systems. See 78 Fed. Reg. 

24786, 24792 (Apr. 26, 2013).
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 39 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

individual TIGER projects and focused on specific transportation 

outcomes for those projects—such as the average daily truck traffic on a 

bridge—we decided not to assess individual project measures by this

broader, government-wide attribute. In addition, the remaining three 

attributes—“core program activities,” “balance,” and “limited overlap”—are 

to be evaluated by reviewing performance measures as a set.7

To assess whether the 95 performance measures in the 15 pre-project 

performance reports satisfied the linkage, clarity, and measureable target 

attributes, two analysts assessed each performance measure against the 

definition of those attributes in table 8 and coded whether the measure 

clearly satisfied, partially satisfied, did not satisfy, or was not applicable to 

the attribute. To help ensure reliability and consistency, in instances 

where the analysts arrived at different codes, those codes were 

discussed and compared with the codes provided for similar measures in 

order to come to a consensus decision. To assess whether the 

performance measure satisfied the attribute of linkage, the team 

assessed each performance measure against DOT’s definitions of the 

long-term outcomes, as published in DOT’s TIGER V (2013) NOFA.

We 

determined that the specific methodology we employed to assess the 

linkage of each performance measure to the five TIGER long-term 

attributes (described below) would be sufficient to assess whether the 

performance measures reflected the core TIGER program activities. We 

also determined that because each pre-project report contained a limited 

set of performance measures (generally 3 to 5), there were insufficient 

numbers of performance measures for an individual project to fully assess 

whether they provided sufficient balance or limited overlap. As a result of 

selecting the three key attributes of linkage, clarity, and measurable 

targets, our analysis is limited to those attributes.

8

To assess the results of the TIGER V (2013) application evaluation and 

project selection process (as provided in app. II), we used data from 

In 

total, we evaluated the extent to which each of the 95 performance 

measures satisfied the linkage attribute for each of the five TIGER longterm outcomes.

 

7

GAO, Drug Control: DOD Needs to Improve Its Performance Measurement System to 

Better Manage and Oversee Its Counternarcotics Activities, GAO-10-835 (Washington, 

D.C.: July 21, 2010).

8

78 Fed. Reg. 24786, 24792 (Apr. 26, 2013).
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 40 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

DOT’s TIGER application evaluation database, provided by DOT in 

November 2013. We assembled descriptive statistics of the results of the 

technical evaluations, project readiness, and economic analysis reviews 

for the universe of applications reviewed and awarded funds by DOT 

according to the respective ratings, and key variables including region, 

project type, and whether a project was considered to be located in an 

urban or rural area. We assessed the reliability of this data by 

interviewing DOT officials familiar with the procedures for data input and 

maintenance, and by reviewing DOT documentation on the structure of 

the database and the procedures for accessing and using this data. We 

determined that the data were sufficiently reliable for our objectives.

We conducted this performance audit from August 2013 to September 

2014 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to 

obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for 

our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 

that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings 

and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
Appendix II: Results of TIGER V (2013) 

Application Evaluation and Project Selection 

Process

Page 41 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

In response to the legislative requirement to award Transportation 

Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program funds on a 

competitive basis, DOT has an established process to evaluate and rate 

TIGER applications against selection criteria, as was described in the 

TIGER V (2013) notice of funding availability (NOFA) as well as in internal 

DOT guidance. The process is led by DOT’s Office of the Under 

Secretary of Transportation for Policy and includes multiple technical 

evaluation teams, a project readiness team, and an economic analysis 

team. While the technical evaluation teams are responsible for reviewing 

all applications under consideration for TIGER funds—585 applications in 

TIGER V (2013)—the project-readiness and economic-analysis teams 

only review a subset of those, which are advanced for their review. DOT 

officials told us that these technical evaluation ratings are used along with 

statutory requirements— including ensuring an equitable geographic 

distribution of funds, an appropriate balance in addressing the needs of 

urban and rural communities and investing in a variety of transportation 

modes—in making final award selection decisions.

In the 2013 funding round (TIGER V), technical evaluation teams 

reviewed each of the 585 TIGER applications submitted according to the 

published selection criteria. The technical evaluation teams rated 136 of 

the 585 applications (23 percent) as highly recommended and 33 of these 

were ultimately awarded funding. While 17 recommended and 2 

acceptable projects were funded in TIGER V, 103 applications rated 

highly recommended were not selected for award. Table 9 shows how all 

TIGER V applications were rated by the technical evaluation teams.

Table 9: TIGER V (2013) Technical Evaluation Team Ratings, by Region

Technical

evaluation rating West East Central South Total

Percentage of

applications 

Number of

funded projects 

Percentage

of funded projects 

Highly recommended 46 22 36 32 136 23 33 63

Recommended 77 39 55 66 237 41 17 33

Acceptable 54 23 36 43 156 27 2 4 

Not recommended 21 7 14 14 56 10 0 0 

Total 198 91 141 155 585 100 52 100

Source: GAO analysis of DOT data. | GAO-14-766

Notes: TIGER refers to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) 

discretionary grant program.

Percentages may not sum to 100 percent due to rounding.

Appendix II: Results of TIGER V (2013) 

Application Evaluation and Project Selection 

Process

Technical Evaluation Team 

Rating Results
Appendix II: Results of TIGER V (2013) 

Application Evaluation and Project Selection 

Process

Page 42 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

More than half (55 percent) of the 585 applications reviewed by the 

TIGER technical evaluation teams in 2013 were submitted for urban 

projects—of which 58 percent were rated as highly recommended. 

Ultimately, 27 grants were awarded to urban projects and 25 were 

awarded to rural projects in TIGER V; 73 percent of TIGER V funds were 

awarded to urban projects, as rural applications generally requested 

lower grant amounts.1

Table 10: TIGER V (2013) Application Technical Evaluation Ratings, Urban versus Rural Projects

Table 10 shows the technical evaluation ratings 

assigned to all urban and rural TIGER V applications.

Technical

evaluation rating 

Applications submitted Projects funded

Urban Rural Urban Urban Rural Rural

Highly recommended 79 57 17 $227,665,452 16 $88,921,129

Recommended 140 97 8 $82,735,109 9 $34,525,310

Acceptable 73 83 2 $24,000,000 0 $0

Not recommended 27 29 0 $0 0 $0

Total 319 266 27 $334,400,561 25 $123,446,439

Source: GAO analysis of DOT data. | GAO-14-766

Note: TIGER refers to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) 

discretionary grant program.

The applications submitted in TIGER V spanned an array of 

transportation project types. More than half (54 percent) were road 

projects, nearly one-fifth (18 percent) were transit, 13 percent were rail 

projects, and 10 percent were port projects. Table 11 shows the technical 

evaluation ratings of all TIGER V applications submitted, by project type.

 

1

In TIGER V (2013), the average request among urban projects was $20.4 million, and the 

average request among rural projects was $9.7 million. Overall, the average TIGER grant 

request was $15.6 million, as the 585 applications submitted requested a total of $9.1 

billion.
Appendix II: Results of TIGER V (2013) 

Application Evaluation and Project Selection 

Process

Page 43 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

Table 11: TIGER V (2013) Technical Evaluation Team Ratings for All Projects Reviewed, by Project Type

Technical evaluation rating Road Rail Transit Port

Bicycle & 

pedestrian Other

Highly recommended

a

54 23 29 17 13 0 

Recommended 120 35 46 22 13 1 

Acceptable 110 9 26 9 2 0 

Not recommended 29 7 7 8 1 4 

Total 313 74 108 56 29 5

Source: GAO analysis of DOT data. | GAO-14-766

Notes: TIGER refers to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) 

discretionary grant program.

a

Other includes applications related to airports and transportation-department building construction; 

no applications in this category were selected for award in TIGER V.

Of the 52 grants awarded in TIGER V, more than half (34) were for road 

(18) or rail (16) projects. DOT awarded 8 grants to transit projects, 7 to 

port projects and 3 to bicycle and pedestrian projects. Table 12 shows the 

technical evaluation ratings of the 52 projects, by type, which were 

awarded TIGER funds in 2013.

Table 12: TIGER V (2013) Technical Evaluation Team Ratings for Projects Awarded 

Funds, by Project Type

Technical evaluation rating Road Rail Transit Port

Bicycle & 

pedestrian

Highly recommended 15 7 3 5 3 

Recommended 3 7 5 2 0 

Acceptable 0 2 0 0 0 

Not recommended 0 0 0 0 0 

Total 18 16 8 7 3 

Source: GAO analysis of DOT data. | GAO-14-766

Note: TIGER refers to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) 

discretionary grant program.

After the TIGER V technical evaluation teams reached consensus on their 

ratings, 189 projects were advanced to the project readiness team, 

including nearly all projects rated as highly recommended and many rated 

as recommended or acceptable. The project readiness team rated 171 of 

the 189 projects (90 percent) as either moderate or low risk; none of the 

18 projects rated as high risk were awarded TIGER funds. Table 13 

Project Readiness Team 

Rating Results
Appendix II: Results of TIGER V (2013) 

Application Evaluation and Project Selection 

Process

Page 44 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

shows the project readiness team’s ratings, by region, for all of the TIGER 

V applications it reviewed.

Table 13: TIGER V (2013) Project Readiness Team Ratings, by Region

Project

readiness rating West East Central South Total

Percentage

of applications 

receiving

this rating

Number

of funded 

projects

receiving

this rating

Percentage

of funded 

projects

receiving

this rating

High Risk 5 3 9 1 18 10 0 0 

Moderate Risk 18 15 14 32 79 42 22 42

Low Risk 33 19 21 19 92 49 30 58

Total 56 37 44 52 189 100 52 100

Source: GAO analysis of DOT data. | GAO-14-766

Note: TIGER refers to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) 

discretionary grant program. Percentages may not sum to 100 percent due to rounding.

In addition to the project readiness team’s review, most TIGER V projects 

rated as highly recommended by the technical evaluation teams—as well 

as many recommended and acceptable projects—were also advanced to 

the economic analysis team. The economic analysis team was led by the 

DOT’s Chief Economist and staffed with economists from across the four 

modal administrations. Each TIGER applicant must submit a benefit-cost 

analysis (BCA) which, according to DOT’s TIGER V NOFA, is to provide 

estimates of the monetary value of the benefits and costs for each project 

and the data used to support the BCA. This team evaluated and assigned 

ratings for (1) the usefulness of each application’s BCA in assessing a 

project’s benefits and costs and (2) whether the project’s benefits are 

reasonably likely to outweigh its costs.

In its reviews of the usefulness of each application’s BCA, the economic 

analysis team rated only 69 of 171 BCAs (40 percent) as very useful or 

useful. Similarly, 21 of the 52 projects selected for award (40 percent) had 

either very useful or useful BCAs. However, 31 of the 52 projects (60 

percent) funded in TIGER V had BCAs that were rated as marginally 

useful (22) or not useful (9) while 48 projects with very useful or useful 

BCAs were not selected for award. Table 14 shows the economic 

analysis team’s BCA usefulness ratings, by region of the BCAs provided 

in the TIGER V applications it reviewed.

Economic Analysis Team 

Rating Results
Appendix II: Results of TIGER V (2013) 

Application Evaluation and Project Selection 

Process

Page 45 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

Table 14: TIGER V (2013) Economic Analysis Team’s Ratings of the Usefulness of Benefit Cost-Analyses, by Region

Benefit-cost analysis 

usefulness rating West East Central South Total

Percentage of 

applications 

receiving

this rating

Number of 

funded project

receiving

this rating

Percentage of 

funded projects 

receiving this rating

Very Useful 3 5 3 3 14 8 6 12

Useful 17 7 12 19 55 32 15 29

Marginally Useful 21 12 18 17 68 40 22 42

Not Useful 6 9 7 12 34 20 9 17

Total 47 33 40 51 171 100 52 100

Source: GAO analysis of DOT data. | GAO-14-766

Note: TIGER refers to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) 

discretionary grant program.

In conducting reviews of whether project benefits are reasonably likely to 

outweigh costs, the economic analysis team found that 94 of 171 BCAs 

(55 percent) demonstrated either that project benefits would exceed costs 

or that while their results were uncertain, benefits appeared likelier to 

outweigh costs. DOT awarded TIGER grants to 29 of these 94 projects. 

DOT also awarded grants to 18 projects with BCAs rated as having 

uncertain results, 4 projects for which the costs appeared likelier to 

outweigh the benefits, and one project for which the costs exceeded the 

benefits. Table 15 shows the economic analysis team’s ratings by region.

Table 15: TIGER V (2013) Economic Analysis Team’s Ratings of the Results of Applicants’ Benefit-Cost Analyses, by Region

Benefit-cost analysis 

demonstrates that... West East Central South Total

Percentage of 

applications 

receiving

this rating

Number of 

funded projects 

receiving

this rating

Percentage of 

funded projects 

receiving

this rating

Benefits of the project exceed 

the costs

5 9 5 13 32 19 14 27

Results are uncertain, but 

benefits appear likelier to 

outweigh costs

19 8 23 12 62 36 15 29

Results are uncertain 20 14 8 14 56 33 18 35

Results are uncertain, but 

costs appear likelier to exceed 

benefits

3 2 4 8 17 10 4 8 

Costs of the project exceed the 

benefits

0 0 0 4 4 2 1 2 

Total 47 33 40 51 171 100 52 100

Source: GAO analysis of DOT data. | GAO-14-766

Notes: TIGER refers to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) 

discretionary grant program.

Percentages may not sum to 100 percent due to rounding.
Appendix III: Selected Projects Reviewed by 

GAO

Page 46 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

Table 16: 20 Selected TIGER Projects Reviewed by GAO, Fiscal Years 2009 (TIGER I) through 2012 (TIGER IV)

Project name Funding round Region Urban/rural Project type Award amount

Saint Paul Union Depot Multi-Modal Transit and 

Transportation Hub

TIGER I (2009) Central Urban Transit $35,000,000

Priority Bus Transit in the National Capital Region TIGER I East Urban Transit $58,838,000

I-244 Multimodal Bridge Replacement TIGER I South Urban Road $49,480,000

US-491 Safety Improvements TIGER I West Rural Road $31,000,000

Great Plains Freight Rail TIGER II (2010) Central Rural Rail $10,230,597

Memorial Bridge Replacement TIGER II East Urban Road $20,000,000

Parramore Bus Rapid Transit TIGER II South Urban Road $10,000,000

Sugar House Streetcar TIGERII West Urban Rail $26,000,000

South Park Bridge Replacement TIGER II West Urban Road $34,000,000

Chicago Blue Line Renewal & City Bike Share TIGER III (2011) Central Urban Transit $20,000,000

South Jersey Port Rail Improvements TIGER III East Urban Rail $18,500,000

Kennebec Bridge Replacement TIGER III East Rural Road $10,810,000

South Link: Sea-Tac Airport to South 200th Street TIGER III West Urban Transit $10,000,000

US 101 Smith River Safety Corridor TIGER III West Rural Bicycle and 

Pedestrian

$ 2,500,000

95th Street Terminal Expansion TIGER IV (2012) Central Urban Transit $20,000,000

Anacostia Bicycle and Pedestrian Project TIGER IV East Urban Bicycle and 

Pedestrian

$10,000,000

Raleigh Union Station Phase I TIGER IV South Urban Rail $21,000,000

Gulf Marine Highway Intermodal Project TIGER IV South Rural Port $12,000,000

Ranson-Charles Town Green Corridor 

Revitalization

TIGER IV South Rural Road $ 5,000,000

I-25 North Managed Lanes Extension and Express 

Bus Project

TIGER IV West Urban Road $15,000,000

Source: DOT data. | GAO-14-766

Note: TIGER refers to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) 

discretionary grant program.

Appendix III: Selected Projects Reviewed by 

GAO 
Appendix IV: Comments from the Department 

of Transportation

Page 47 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

Appendix IV: Comments from the 

Department of Transportation
Appendix IV: Comments from the Department 

of Transportation

Page 48 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program
Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

Page 49 GAO-14-766 TIGER Grant Program

Susan Fleming, (202) 512-2834, or flemings@gao.gov

In addition to the contact above, Steve Cohen, Assistant Director; Matt 

Barranca; Elizabeth Curda; Stephanie Emerson; Colin Fallon; Dave 

Hooper; Terence Lam; Grant Mallie; Amanda Miller; John Mingus; Sara 

Ann Moessbauer, Crystal Wesco; and Chad Williams made key 

contributions to this report.

Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

Contact

Acknowledgments

(541111)
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