Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 20 / Tuesday, January 31, 2012 / Notices 4863 

those projects that are transportation 

related. Each area on the fillable pdf 

form must be filled in electronically by 

the Field Offices and submitted every 

quarter to OSDBU. The Offices will 

retain a copy of each Intake Form for 

their records. The completion of the 

form is used as a tool for making 

decisions about the needs of the 

business, such as; referral to technical 

assistance agencies for help, identifying 

the type of profession or trade of the 

business, the type of certification that 

the business holds, length of time in 

business, and location of the firm. This 

data can assist the Field Offices in 

developing a business plan or adjusting 

their business plan to increase its ability 

to market its goods and services to 

buyers and potential users of their 

services. 

Respondents: SBTRC Regional Field 

Offices. 

Estimated Number of Respondents: 

100. 

Frequency: The information will be 

collected quarterly. 

Estimated Number of Responses: 100. 

Estimated Total Annual Burden on 

Respondents: 600 hours per year. 

Background: The Regional Field 

Offices Quarterly Report Form (DOT F 

4502) by each Field Office must be 

submitted as a quarterly status report of 

business activities conducted during the 

three month time frame. The form is 

used to capture activities and 

accomplishments that were made by the 

Regional Field Offices during the course 

of the quarter. In addition, the form 

includes a data collection section where 

numbers and hours are reported and a 

section that is assigned for a written 

narrative that provides back up which 

supports the data. 

Activities to be reported are (1) 

Counseling Activity which identifies the 

counseling hours provided to 

businesses, number of new 

appointments, and follow-up on 

counseled clients. (2) Activity for 

Businesses Served identifies the type of 

small business that is helped, such as a 

DBE, 8(a), WOB, HubZone, SDB, 

SDVOB, or VOSB. (3) Marketing 

Activity includes the name of an event 

attended by the SBTRC and the role 

played when participating in a 

conference, workshop or any other 

venue that relates to small businesses. 

(4) Meetings that are held with 

government representatives in the 

region, or at the state level, are an 

activity that is reported. (5) Events 

Hosted by the SBTRC Regional Field 

Offices, such as small business 

workshops, financial assistance 

workshops, matchmaking events, are 

activities that are reported on a 

quarterly basis. 

Respondents: SBTRC Regional Field 

Offices. 

Estimated Number of Respondents: 

100. 

Frequency: The information will be 

collected quarterly. 

Estimated Number of Responses: 100. 

Estimated Total Annual Burden on 

Respondents: 1200 hours per year. 

Public Comments Invited: You are 

asked to comment on any aspect of this 

information collection, including (a) 

whether the proposed collection of 

information is necessary for the proper 

performance of the functions of the 

Department, including whether the 

information will have practical utility; 

(b) the accuracy of the Department’s 

estimate of the burden of the proposed 

information collection; (c) ways to 

enhance the quality, utility and clarity 

of the information collection; and (d) 

ways to minimize the burden of the 

collection of information on 

respondents, by the use of electronic 

means, including the use of automated 

collection techniques or other forms of 

information technology. The agency will 

summarize and/or include your 

comments in the request for OMB’s 

clearance of this information collection. 

Authority: The Paperwork Reduction Act 

of 1995; 44 U.S.C. Chapter 35, as amended; 

and 49 CFR 1:48. 

Issued in Washington, DC on January 24, 

2012. 

Brandon Neal, 

Director, Office of Small and Disadvantaged, 

Business Utilization. 

[FR Doc. 2012–2044 Filed 1–30–12; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4910–9X–P 

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Office of the Secretary of 

Transportation 

[Docket No. DOT–OST–2012–0012] 

Notice of Funding Availability for the 

Department of Transportation’s 

National Infrastructure Investments 

Under the Full-Year Continuing 

Appropriations, 2012; and Request for 

Comments 

AGENCY: Office of the Secretary of 

Transportation, DOT. 

ACTION: Notice of Funding Availability, 

Request for Comments. 

SUMMARY: This notice announces the 

availability of funding and requests 

proposals for the Department of 

Transportation’s National Infrastructure 

Investments. In addition, this notice 

announces selection criteria and preapplication and application 

requirements for the National 

Infrastructure Investments. 

The Consolidated and Further 

Continuing Appropriations Act, 2012 

(Pub. L. 112–055, Nov. 18, 2011) (‘‘FY 

2012 Appropriations Act’’) appropriated 

$500 million to be awarded by the 

Department of Transportation (‘‘DOT’’) 

for National Infrastructure Investments. 

This appropriation is similar, but not 

identical to the appropriation for the 

Transportation Investment Generating 

Economic Recovery, or ‘‘TIGER 

Discretionary Grant’’, program 

authorized and implemented pursuant 

to the American Recovery and 

Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the 

‘‘Recovery Act’’). Because of the 

similarity in program structure, DOT 

will continue to refer to the program as 

‘‘TIGER Discretionary Grants.’’ As with 

previous rounds of TIGER, funds for the 

FY 2012 TIGER program are to be 

awarded on a competitive basis for 

projects that will have a significant 

impact on the Nation, a metropolitan 

area or a region. 

Through this notice, DOT is soliciting 

applications for TIGER Discretionary 

Grants. In the event that this solicitation 

does not result in the award and 

obligation of all available funds, DOT 

may decide to publish an additional 

solicitation(s). 

DATES: Pre-applications must be 

submitted by February 20, 2012, at 5 

p.m. EST (the ‘‘Pre-Application 

Deadline’’). Final applications must be 

submitted through Grants.gov by March 

19, 2012, at 5 p.m. EDT (the 

‘‘Application Deadline’’). The DOT preapplication system will open on or 

before February 13, 2012, to allow 

prospective applicants to submit preapplications. Subsequently, the 

Grants.gov ‘‘Apply’’ function will open 

on February 22, 2012, allowing 

applicants to submit applications. 

Applicants are encouraged to submit 

pre-applications and applications in 

advance of the deadlines. 

ADDRESSES: Pre-applications must be 

submitted electronically to DOT and 

applications must be submitted 

electronically through Grants.gov. Only 

pre-applications received by DOT and 

applications received electronically 

through Grants.gov will be deemed 

properly filed. Instructions for 

submitting pre-applications to DOT and 

applications through Grants.gov are 

included in Section VII (Pre-Application 

and Application Cycle). 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For 

further information concerning this 

notice please contact the TIGER 

Discretionary Grant program staff via 


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4864 Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 20 / Tuesday, January 31, 2012 / Notices 

1Consistent with the FY 2012 Appropriations 

Act, DOT will apply the following principles in 

determining whether a project is eligible as a capital 

investment in surface transportation: (1) surface 

transportation facilities generally include roads, 

highways and bridges, marine ports, freight and 

passenger railroads, transit systems, and projects 

that connect transportation facilities to other modes 

email at TIGERGrants@dot.gov, or call 

Howard Hill at (202) 366–0301. A TDD 

is available for individuals who are deaf 

or hard of hearing at (202) 366–3993. In 

addition, DOT will regularly post 

answers to questions and requests for 

clarifications on DOT’s Web site at 

www.dot.gov/TIGER. Applicants are 

encouraged to contact DOT directly and 

rather than rely on third parties to 

receive information about TIGER 

Discretionary Grants. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This 

notice is substantially similar to the 

Final notice published for the TIGER 

Discretionary Grant program in the 

Federal Register on August 12, 2011. 

However, there are a few significant 

differences: 

1. To ensure applicants receive the 

most accurate information possible, 

Eligible Applicants must contact DOT 

directly, rather than through 

intermediaries, to get questions 

answered, set up briefings on the TIGER 

Discretionary Grants selection and 

award process, or receive other 

assistance. 

2. As in previous rounds of TIGER, 

high speed and intercity passenger rail 

projects remain eligible for funding 

under this program and a high priority 

of this Administration. DOT would like 

to encourage those seeking funding for 

passenger rail projects to consider 

TIGER and will, therefore, make up to 

$100 million in TIGER funds available 

to high speed and intercity passenger 

rail projects. 

3. Applications must include a 

detailed statement of work, detailed 

project schedule, and detailed project 

budget in the project narrative. Due to 

the shorter timeframe allowed for the 

obligation of TIGER Discretionary Grant 

funds in this round of funding in 

comparison to previous rounds, 

applicants must include this detailed 

information in their application in order 

to demonstrate that their projects are 

ready to proceed within this shortened 

timeframe. 

4. The discussion on Benefit-Cost 

Analysis (Appendix A: Additional 

Information on Benefit-Cost Analysis) 

has been streamlined and includes tools 

to aid applicants in preparing their 

analyses. 

Other than these differences, and 

minor edits for clarification and those 

made to conform the notice to the 

statutory circumstances of this round of 

TIGER Discretionary Grants funding, 

there have been no material changes 

made to the notice. Each section of this 

notice contains information and 

instructions relevant to the application 

process for these TIGER Discretionary 

Grants and prospective applicants 

should read this notice in its entirety so 

that they have the information they 

need to submit eligible and competitive 

applications. 

Table of Contents 

I. Background 

TIGER Discretionary Grants 

II. Selection Criteria and Guidance on 

Application of Selection Criteria 

III. Evaluation and Selection Process 

IV. Grant Administration 

V. Projects in Rural Areas 

VI. TIGER TIFIA Payments 

Application Requirements 

VII. Pre-Application and Application Cycle 

VIII. Project Benefits 

IX. Questions and Clarifications 

Appendix A: Additional Information on 

Benefit-Cost Analysis 

Appendix B: Additional Information on 

Applying Through Grants.gov 

Appendix C: Additional Information on 

Guidelines for Project Readiness 

I. Background 

On November 18, 2011, the President 

signed the FY 2012 Appropriations Act. 

This Act appropriated $500 million to 

DOT for National Infrastructure 

Investments, using language that is 

similar, but not identical to the language 

in appropriations bills from FY 2010 

and FY 2011 and the Recovery Act. 

This program was first created in the 

2009 Recovery Act, since which time 

DOT has referred to these grants as 

Transportation Investment Generating 

Economic Recovery or ‘‘TIGER 

Discretionary Grants.’’ Through the 

Recovery Act and continuing through 

the FY 2010 and 2011 appropriations 

processes, Congress has provided DOT 

with three rounds of competitive grants 

totaling just over $2.6 billion for capital 

investments in surface transportation 

infrastructure. See DOT’s Web site at 

http://www.dot.gov/tiger/index.html for 

further background on the disbursement 

of past rounds of TIGER Discretionary 

Grants. 

DOT’s most recent solicitation for 

TIGER Discretionary Grants occurred 

through a notice of funding availability 

published in the Federal Register on 

August 12, 2011 (an interim notice was 

published on July 1, 2011). Applications 

for TIGER Discretionary Grants were 

due on October 31, 2011 and 848 

applications were received with funding 

requests totaling approximately $14.29 

billion. Awards for 46 capital projects 

totaling $511 million were announced 

on December 15, 2011. Grant awards 

ranged from $1 million to $13.5 million 

for projects in rural areas and $10 

million to $20 million for projects in 

urban areas. Projects were selected for 

funding based on their alignment with 

the selection criteria specified in the 

August 12, 2011, Federal Register 

notice. 

FY 2012 TIGER Discretionary Grants 

Like the previous rounds, this year’s 

TIGER Discretionary Grants are for 

capital investments in surface 

transportation infrastructure and are to 

be awarded on a competitive basis for 

projects that will have a significant 

impact on the Nation, a metropolitan 

area, or a region. 

‘‘Eligible Applicants’’ for TIGER 

Discretionary Grants are State, local, 

and tribal governments, including U.S. 

territories, transit agencies, port 

authorities, metropolitan planning 

organizations (MPOs), other political 

subdivisions of State or local 

governments, and multi-State or multijurisdictional groups applying through a 

single lead applicant (for multijurisdictional groups, each member of 

the group, including the lead applicant, 

must be an otherwise Eligible Applicant 

as defined in this paragraph). 

To ensure applicants receive the most 

accurate information possible, Eligible 

Applicants must contact DOT directly, 

rather than through intermediaries, to 

get questions answered, set up briefings 

on the TIGER Discretionary Grants 

selection and award process, or receive 

other assistance. Assistance can be 

obtained by simply calling or emailing 

the TIGER Discretionary Grant program 

staff via email at TIGERGrants@dot.gov, 

or by calling Howard Hill at (202) 366– 

0301. 

Projects that are eligible for TIGER 

Discretionary Grants (‘‘Eligible 

Projects’’) include, but are not limited 

to: (1) Highway or bridge projects 

eligible under title 23, United States 

Code; (2) public transportation projects 

eligible under chapter 53 of title 49, 

United States Code; (3) passenger and 

freight rail transportation projects; and 

(4) marine port infrastructure 

investments. Federal wage rate 

requirements included in subchapter IV 

of chapter 31 of title 40, United States 

Code, apply to all projects receiving 

funds, and apply to all parts of the 

project, whether funded with TIGER 

Discretionary Grant funds, other federal 

funds, or non-federal funds. This 

description of Eligible Projects is 

identical to the description of eligible 

projects under earlier rounds of the 

TIGER Discretionary Grant program.1


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Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 20 / Tuesday, January 31, 2012 / Notices 4865 

of transportation; and (2) surface transportation 

facilities also include any highway or bridge project 

eligible under title 23, U.S.C., or public 

transportation project eligible under chapter 53 of 

title 49, U.S.C. Please note that the Department may 

use a TIGER Discretionary Grant to pay for the 

surface transportation components of a broader 

project that has non-surface transportation 

components, and applicants are encouraged to 

apply for TIGER Discretionary Grants to pay for the 

surface transportation components of these projects. 

As was the case in earlier rounds of 

the TIGER Discretionary Grant program, 

Eligible Projects do not include 

research, demonstration, or pilot 

projects that do not result in publically 

accessible surface transportation 

infrastructure. To be funded, projects or 

elements of a project must demonstrate 

independent utility, which means that 

the project provides transportation 

benefits and is ready for broad public 

use upon completion of project 

construction. 

Each applicant may submit no more 

than three applications for 

consideration to the TIGER 

Discretionary Grant Program to focus 

submissions on those applications that 

are most likely to align well with DOT’s 

selection criteria. While applications 

may include requests to fund more than 

one project, applicants may not bundle 

together unrelated projects in the same 

application for purposes of avoiding the 

three application limit that applies to 

each applicant. Please note that the 

three application limit applies only to 

applications where the applicant is the 

lead applicant, and there is no limit on 

applications for which an applicant can 

be listed as a partnering agency. Also, 

DOT will not count any application for 

a multistate project against the three 

application limit to the extent multiple 

states are partnering to submit the 

application. Furthermore, jurisdictions 

that collaborate with regional partners 

on a priority application are more likely 

to be successful than those that choose 

separate priorities and apply separately 

because DOT will give priority to 

applications that demonstrate a high 

degree of Jurisdictional & Stakeholder 

Collaboration (see Section II. Selection 

Criteria and Guidance on Application of 

Selection Criteria). If any lead applicant 

submits more than three applications, 

only the first three received will be 

considered. 

The FY 2012 Appropriations Act 

requires a new solicitation of 

applications and, therefore, any 

unsuccessful applicant for earlier 

rounds of TIGER Discretionary Grants 

that wishes to be considered for a TIGER 

Discretionary Grant this year must 

reapply according to the procedures in 

this notice. 

The FY 2012 Appropriations Act 

specifies that TIGER Discretionary 

Grants may be not less than $10 million 

(except in rural areas) and not greater 

than $200 million. The FY 2012 

Appropriations Act does not provide 

authority to waive the minimum $10 

million grant size for projects located in 

urbanized areas. For projects located in 

rural areas (as defined in Section V 

(Projects in Rural Areas)), the minimum 

TIGER Discretionary Grant size is $1 

million. The term ‘‘grant’’ in the 

provision of the FY 2012 

Appropriations Act specifying a 

minimum grant size does not include 

TIGER TIFIA Payments, as described 

below. 

DOT reserves the right to award funds 

for a part of the project, not the full 

project, if a part of the project has 

independent utility and aligns well with 

the selection criteria specified in this 

notice. 

Pursuant to the FY 2012 

Appropriations Act, no more than 25 

percent of the funds made available for 

TIGER Discretionary Grants (or $125 

million) may be awarded to projects in 

a single State. 

The FY 2012 Appropriations Act 

directs that not less than $120 million 

of the funds provided for TIGER 

Discretionary Grants be used for projects 

located in rural areas. Further, in 

awarding TIGER Discretionary Grants 

pursuant to the FY 2012 Appropriations 

Act, DOT must take measures to ensure 

an equitable geographic distribution of 

grant funds, an appropriate balance in 

addressing the needs of urban and rural 

areas and the investment in a variety of 

transportation modes. As in previous 

rounds of TIGER, high speed and 

intercity passenger rail projects remain 

eligible for funding under this program 

and a high priority of this 

Administration. DOT would like to 

encourage those seeking funding for 

passenger rail projects to consider 

TIGER and will, therefore, make up to 

$100 million in TIGER funds available 

to high speed and intercity passenger 

rail projects. 

TIGER Discretionary Grants may be 

used for up to 80 percent of the costs of 

a project, but priority must be given to 

projects for which Federal funding is 

required to complete an overall 

financing package and projects can 

increase their competitiveness by 

demonstrating significant non-Federal 

contributions. DOT may increase the 

Federal share above 80 percent only for 

projects located in rural areas, in which 

case DOT may fund up to 100 percent 

of the costs of a project. Therefore, for 

projects located in urban areas, based on 

the statutory requirements of at least 20 

percent non-Federal cost share and a 

minimum grant size of $10 million, the 

minimum total project size for an 

eligible project is $12.5 million (where 

the minimum $10 million TIGER 

Discretionary Grant request represents 

80 percent of the total project cost). The 

minimum total project size for an 

eligible project in a rural area is $1 

million (where the entire project cost is 

funded with a TIGER Discretionary 

Grant). However, the statutory 

requirement to give priority to projects 

that use Federal funds to complete an 

overall financing package applies to 

projects located in rural areas as well, 

and projects located in rural areas can 

increase their competitiveness for 

purposes of the TIGER program by 

demonstrating significant non-Federal 

financial contributions. In the FY2011 

competition, on average, urban projects 

pledged 65% non-Federal funds while 

rural projects featured more than 46% 

non-Federal funds. Three TIGER–TIFIA 

projects will use only 2% TIGER funds 

but leverage more than $1.8 billion in 

non-Federal investment. DOT will 

consider any non-Federal funds as well 

as funds from the Indian Reservation 

Roads Program as a local match for 

purposes of this program, whether such 

funds are contributed by the public 

sector (State or local) or the private 

sector. However, DOT cannot consider 

funds already expended as a local 

match. 

The 2012 Appropriations Act requires 

that TIGER funds are only available for 

obligation through September 30, 2013. 

The limited amount of time for which 

the funds will be made available means 

that DOT will focus on the extent to 

which a project is ready to proceed with 

obligation of grant funds when 

evaluating applications, and give 

priority to those projects that are ready 

to proceed sooner than other 

competitive projects. 

The FY 2012 Appropriations Act 

allows for an amount not to exceed $175 

million of the $500 million to be used 

to pay the subsidy and administrative 

costs for a project receiving credit 

assistance under the Transportation 

Infrastructure Finance and Innovation 

Act of 1998 (‘‘TIFIA’’) program, if it 

would further the purposes of the 

TIGER Discretionary Grant program. 

DOT is referring to these payments as 

‘‘TIGER TIFIA Payments.’’ The amount 

of budget authority required to support 

TIFIA credit assistance is calculated on 

a project-by-project basis. Applicants for 

TIGER TIFIA Payments should submit 

an application pursuant to this notice 

and a separate TIFIA letter of interest, 

as described below in Section VI (TIGER 

TIFIA Payments). Unless otherwise 


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2While Economically Distressed Areas are 

typically identified under the Public Works and 

Economic Development Act at the county level, for 

the purposes of this program DOT will consider 

regions, municipalities, smaller areas within larger 

communities, or other geographic areas to be 

Economically Distressed Areas if an applicant can 

demonstrate that any such area otherwise meets the 

requirements of an Economically Distressed Area as 

defined in section 301 of the Public Works and 

Economic Development Act of 1965. 

noted, or the context requires otherwise, 

references in this notice to TIGER 

Discretionary Grants include TIGER 

TIFIA Payments. 

Due to the limited funding available 

under this program, applicants that 

require a substantial amount of funds to 

complete a financing package should 

consider whether a TIGER TIFIA 

Payment may provide more value for 

their project than a comparable award of 

grant funds. DOT reserves the right to 

offer a TIGER TIFIA Payment to an 

applicant that applied for a TIGER 

Discretionary Grant even if DOT does 

not choose to fund the requested TIGER 

Discretionary Grant and the applicant 

did not specifically request a TIGER 

TIFIA Payment. 

While TIFIA support has most often 

been sought for road and bridge projects 

(including multiple TIGER TIFIA 

payments for managed lanes projects), 

TIFIA is a multimodal program. DOT 

encourages applicants seeking support 

for large multimodal projects that meet 

TIFIA eligibility criteria, including 

major transit projects, to consider TIGER 

TIFIA Payments as a means for federal 

support of these projects. In the past two 

rounds of TIGER Discretionary Grants, 

two TIGER TIFIA Payments were 

awarded to transit agencies for the 

expansion of fixed guideway transit 

systems. 

TIGER grant recipients may apply for 

funding to support additional phases of 

a project awarded funds in earlier 

rounds of this program. However, to be 

competitive, any phase awarded 

funding in the past should be at or near 

completion, and the applicant should 

provide data about how the project is 

performing based on the benefits 

expected in the original application. 

The FY 2012 Appropriations Act 

provides that the Secretary of 

Transportation may retain up to $20 

million of the $500 million to fund the 

award and oversight of TIGER 

Discretionary Grants. Portions of the $20 

million may be transferred for these 

purposes to the Administrators of the 

Federal Highway Administration, the 

Federal Transit Administration, the 

Federal Railroad Administration, and 

the Federal Maritime Administration. 

The purpose of this notice is to solicit 

applications for TIGER Discretionary 

Grants. This is a final notice. 

TIGER Discretionary Grants 

II. Selection Criteria and Guidance on 

Application of Selection Criteria 

This section specifies the criteria that 

DOT will use to evaluate applications 

for TIGER Discretionary Grants. The 

criteria incorporate the statutory 

eligibility requirements for this 

program, which are specified in this 

notice as relevant. This section is 

divided into two parts. Part A (Selection 

Criteria) specifies the criteria that DOT 

will use to rate projects. Additional 

guidance about how DOT will apply 

these criteria, including illustrative 

metrics and examples, is provided in 

Part B (Additional Guidance on 

Selection Criteria). 

A. Selection Criteria 

TIGER Discretionary Grants will be 

awarded based on the selection criteria 

as outlined below. There are two 

categories of selection criteria, ‘‘Primary 

Selection Criteria’’ and ‘‘Secondary 

Selection Criteria.’’ 

1. Primary Selection Criteria 

(a) Long-Term Outcomes 

DOT will give priority to projects that 

have a significant impact on desirable 

long-term outcomes for the Nation, a 

metropolitan area, or a region. 

Applications that do not demonstrate a 

likelihood of significant long-term 

benefits in this criterion will not 

proceed in the evaluation process. The 

following types of long-term outcomes 

will be given priority: 

(i) State of Good Repair: Improving 

the condition of existing transportation 

facilities and systems, with particular 

emphasis on projects that minimize lifecycle costs. 

(ii) Economic Competitiveness: 

Contributing to the economic 

competitiveness of the United States 

over the medium- to long-term. 

(iii) Livability: Fostering livable 

communities through policies and 

investments that increase transportation 

choices and access to transportation 

services for people in communities 

across the United States. 

(iv) Environmental Sustainability: 

Improving energy efficiency, reducing 

dependence on oil, reducing greenhouse 

gas emissions and benefitting the 

environment. 

(v) Safety: Improving the safety of 

U.S. transportation facilities and 

systems. 

(b) Job Creation and Near-Term 

Economic Activity 

Job creation and near-term economic 

activity remain a top priority of this 

Administration; therefore, DOT will 

give priority to projects that are 

expected to quickly create and preserve 

jobs and promote rapid increases in 

economic activity, particularly jobs and 

activity that benefit economically 

distressed areas as defined by section 

301 of the Public Works and Economic 

Development Act of 1965, as amended 

(42 U.S.C. 3161) (‘‘Economically 

Distressed Areas’’).2

2. Secondary Selection Criteria 

(a) Innovation 

DOT will give priority to projects that 

use innovative strategies to pursue the 

long-term outcomes outlined above. 

(b) Partnership 

DOT will give priority to projects that 

demonstrate strong collaboration among 

a broad range of participants, integration 

of transportation with other public 

service efforts, and/or are the product of 

a robust planning process. 

B. Additional Guidance on Selection 

Criteria 

The following additional guidance 

explains how DOT will evaluate each of 

the selection criteria identified above in 

Section II(A) (Selection Criteria). 

Applicants are encouraged to 

demonstrate the responsiveness of a 

project to any and all of the selection 

criteria with the most relevant 

information that applicants can provide, 

regardless of whether such information 

has been specifically requested, or 

identified, in this notice. Any such 

information shall be considered part of 

the application, not supplemental, for 

purposes of the application size limits 

specified below in Section VII(D) 

(Length of Application). 

1. Primary Selection Criteria 

(a) Long-Term Outcomes 

In order to measure a project’s 

alignment with this criterion, DOT will 

assess the public benefits generated by 

the project, as measured by the extent to 

which a project produces one or more 

of the following outcomes. 

(i) State of Good Repair: In order to 

determine whether the project will 

improve the condition of existing 

transportation facilities or systems, 

including whether life-cycle costs will 

be minimized, DOT will assess (i) 

whether the project is part of, or 

consistent with, relevant State, local or 

regional efforts and plans to maintain 

transportation facilities or systems in a 

state of good repair, (ii) whether an 

important aim of the project is to 

rehabilitate, reconstruct or upgrade 


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3 In full, this principle reads: ‘‘Provide more 

transportation choices. Develop safe, reliable and 

economical transportation choices to decrease 

household transportation costs, reduce our nations’ 

dependence on foreign oil, improve air quality, 

reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote 

public health.’’ 

surface transportation assets that, if left 

unimproved, threaten future 

transportation network efficiency, 

mobility of goods or accessibility of 

people, or economic growth due to their 

poor condition, (iii) whether the project 

is appropriately capitalized up front and 

uses asset management approaches that 

optimize its long-term cost structure, 

and (iv) the extent to which a 

sustainable source of revenue is 

available for long-term operations and 

maintenance of the project. The 

application should include any 

quantifiable metrics of the facility or 

system’s current condition and 

performance and, to the extent possible, 

projected condition and performance, 

with an explanation of how the project 

will improve the facility or system’s 

condition, performance and/or longterm cost structure, including 

calculations of avoided operations and 

maintenance costs and associated 

delays. 

(ii) Economic Competitiveness: In 

order to determine whether a project 

promotes the economic competitiveness 

of the United States, DOT will assess 

whether the project will measurably 

contribute over the long term to growth 

in the productivity of the American 

economy. For purposes of aligning a 

project with this outcome, applicants 

should provide evidence of how 

improvements in transportation 

outcomes (such as time savings and 

operating cost savings) translate into 

long-term economic productivity 

benefits. These long-term economic 

benefits that are provided by the 

completed project are different from the 

near-term economic benefits of 

construction that are captured in the Job 

Creation & Near-Term Economic 

Activity criterion. In weighing long-term 

economic competitiveness benefits, 

applicants should describe how the 

project supports increased long-term 

efficiency and productivity. 

Priority consideration will be given to 

projects that: (i) Improve long-term 

efficiency, reliability or costcompetitiveness in the movement of 

workers or goods, with a particular 

focus on projects that have a significant 

effect on reducing the costs of 

transporting export cargoes, or (ii) make 

improvements that increase the 

economic productivity of land, capital 

or labor at specific locations, 

particularly Economically Distressed 

Areas. Applicants may propose other 

methods of demonstrating a project’s 

contribution to the economic 

competitiveness of the country and such 

methods will be reviewed on a case-bycase basis. 

Economic competitiveness may be 

demonstrated by the project’s ability to 

increase the efficiency and effectiveness 

of the transportation system through 

integration or better use of all existing 

transportation infrastructure. This may 

be evidenced by the project’s 

involvement with or benefits to more 

than one mode and/or its compatibility 

with and its connection to other modes 

and facilities. Applications that 

demonstrate increases in efficiency for 

exports will be given priority in the 

evaluation process. 

For purposes of demonstrating 

economic benefits, applicants should 

estimate National-level or region-wide 

economic benefits on productivity and 

production (e.g., reduced shipping costs 

or travel times for U.S. exports 

originating both inside and outside of 

the region), and should take care not to 

include economic benefits that are being 

shifted from one location in the United 

States to another location. Highly 

localized benefits will receive the most 

consideration under circumstances 

where such benefits are most likely to 

improve an Economically Distressed 

Area (as defined herein) or otherwise 

improve access to more productive 

employment opportunities for underemployed and disadvantaged 

populations. 

(iii) Livability: Livability investments 

are projects that not only deliver 

transportation benefits, but are also 

designed and planned in such a way 

that they have a positive impact on 

qualitative measures of community life. 

This element of long-term outcomes 

delivers benefits that are inherently 

difficult to measure. However, it is 

implicit to livability that its benefits are 

shared and therefore magnified by the 

number of potential users in the affected 

community. Therefore, descriptions of 

how projects enhance livability should 

include a description of the affected 

community and the scale of the project’s 

impact as measured in person-miles 

traveled or number of trips affected. In 

order to determine whether a project 

improves the quality of the living and 

working environment of a community, 

DOT will consider whether the project 

furthers the six livability principles 

developed by DOT with the Department 

of Housing and Urban Development 

(HUD) and the Environmental 

Protection Agency (EPA) as part of the 

Partnership for Sustainable 

Communities, which are listed fully at 

http://www.dot.gov/affairs/2009/ 

dot8009.htm. For this criterion, the 

Department will give particular 

consideration to the first principle, 

which prioritizes the creation of 

affordable and convenient 

transportation choices.3 Specifically, 

DOT will qualitatively assess whether 

the project: 

(1) Will significantly enhance or 

reduce the average cost of user mobility 

through the creation of more convenient 

transportation options for travelers; 

(2) Will improve existing 

transportation choices by enhancing 

points of modal connectivity, increasing 

the number of modes accommodated on 

existing assets, or reducing congestion 

on existing modal assets; 

(3) Will improve accessibility and 

transport services for economically 

disadvantaged populations, non-drivers, 

senior citizens, and persons with 

disabilities, or will make goods, 

commodities, and services more readily 

available to these groups; and/or 

(4) Is the result of a planning process 

which coordinated transportation and 

land-use planning decisions and 

encouraged community participation in 

the process, such as planning conducted 

with TIGER II Planning Grants, the 

Department of Housing and Urban 

Development’s Regional Planning 

Grants, or the Environmental Protection 

Agency’s Brownfield Area-Wide 

Planning Pilot Program as well as 

technical assistance programs focused 

on livability or economic development 

planning. 

Livability improvements may include 

projects for new or improved biking and 

walking infrastructure. However, 

particular attention will be paid to the 

degree to which such projects contribute 

significantly to broader traveler 

mobility, including for people with 

disabilities, through intermodal 

connections, enhanced job commuting 

options, or improved connections 

between residential and commercial 

areas. Projects that appear designed 

primarily as recreational facilities and 

do not enhance traveler mobility as 

described above will not be funded. 

(iv) Environmental Sustainability: In 

order to determine whether a project 

promotes a more environmentally 

sustainable transportation system, DOT 

will assess the project’s ability to: 

(1) Improve energy efficiency, reduce 

dependence on oil and/or reduce 

greenhouse gas emissions, (applicants 

are encouraged to provide quantitative 

information regarding expected 

reductions in emissions of CO2 or fuel 

consumption as a result of the project, 

or expected use of clean or alternative 


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4 DOT has a responsibility under Executive Order 

12893, Principles for Federal Infrastructure 

Investments, 59 FR 4233, to base infrastructure 

investments on systematic analysis of expected 

benefits and costs, including both quantitative and 

qualitative measures. 

5The Executive Office of the President, Council 

of Economic Advisers, (CEA), issued a 

memorandum in May 2009 on ‘‘Estimates of Job 

Creation from the American Recovery and 

Reinvestment Act of 2009.’’ That memorandum 

provides a simple rule for estimating job-years 

created by government spending, which is that 

$92,000 of government spending creates one jobyear (or 10,870 job-years per billion dollars of 

spending). More recently, in September 2011, based 

on further analysis both of actual job-creation 

experience from transportation projects under the 

Recovery Act and on further macroeconomic 

analysis, the CEA determined that a job-year is 

created by every $76,923 in transportation 

infrastructure spending (or 13,000 job-years per 

billion dollars of transportation infrastructure 

spending). This figure can now be used in place of 

the earlier $92,000/job-year estimate. Applicants 

can use this estimate as an appropriate indicator of 

direct, indirect and induced job-years created by 

TIGER Discretionary Grant spending, but are 

encouraged to supplement or modify this estimate 

to the extent they can demonstrate that such 

modifications are justified. However, since this 

guidance makes job creation purely a function of 

the level of expenditure, applicants should also 

demonstrate how quickly jobs will be created under 

the proposed project. Projects that generate a given 

number of jobs more quickly will have a more 

favorable impact on economic recovery. A quarterby-quarter projection of the number of direct jobhours expected to be created by the project is useful 

in assessing the impacts of a project on economic 

recovery. Furthermore, applicants should be aware 

that certain types of expenditures are less likely to 

align well with the Job Creation & Near-Term 

Economic Activity criterion. These types of 

expenditures include, among other things, 

engineering or design work and purchasing existing 

facilities or right-of-way. 

sources of energy; projects that 

demonstrate a projected decrease in the 

movement of people or goods by less 

energy-efficient vehicles or systems will 

be given priority under this factor); and 

(2) Maintain, protect or enhance the 

environment, as evidenced by its 

avoidance of adverse environmental 

impacts (for example, adverse impacts 

related to air or water quality, wetlands, 

and endangered species) and/or by its 

environmental benefits (for example, 

improved air quality, wetlands creation 

or improved habitat connectivity). 

Applicants are encouraged to provide 

quantitative information that validates 

the existence of substantial 

transportation-related costs related to 

energy consumption and adverse 

environmental effects and evidence of 

the extent to which the project will 

reduce or mitigate those costs. 

(v) Safety: In order to determine 

whether the project improves safety, 

DOT will assess the project’s ability to 

reduce the number, rate and 

consequences of surface transportationrelated crashes, injuries, and fatalities 

among drivers and/or non-drivers in the 

United States or in the affected 

metropolitan area or region, and/or the 

project’s contribution to the elimination 

of highway/rail grade crossings, the 

protection of pipelines, or the 

prevention of unintended release of 

hazardous materials. 

Evaluation of Expected Project Costs 

and Benefits: DOT believes that benefitcost analysis (‘‘BCA’’) is an important 

discipline. For BCA to yield useful 

results, a robust consideration of costs 

and benefits is necessary. These include 

quantified fuel and travel time savings 

as well as reductions in greenhouse gas 

emissions, water quality impacts, and 

public health effects as well as 

quantification of other costs and 

benefits that are more indirectly related 

to vehicle-miles or that are harder to 

measure. In addition, BCA should 

attempt to measure the indirect effects 

of transportation investments on land 

use and on the portions of household 

budgets spent on transportation. The 

systematic process of comparing 

expected benefits and costs helps 

decision-makers organize information 

about, and evaluate trade-offs between, 

alternative transportation investments.4

Therefore, applicants for TIGER 

Discretionary Grants are generally 

required to identify, quantify, and 

compare expected benefits and costs, 

subject to the following qualifications: 

All applicants will be expected to 

prepare an analysis of benefits and 

costs; however, DOT understands that 

the detail of analysis that should be 

expected (for items such as surveys, 

travel demand forecasts, market 

forecasts, statistical analyses) is less for 

smaller projects than for larger projects. 

The level of resources devoted to 

preparing the benefit-cost analysis 

should be reasonably related to the size 

of the overall project and the amount of 

grant funds requested in the application. 

Any subjective estimates of benefits and 

costs should still be quantified, and 

applicants should provide whatever 

evidence they have available to lend 

credence to their subjective estimates. 

Estimates of benefits should be 

presented in monetary terms whenever 

possible; if a monetary estimate is not 

possible, then at least a quantitative 

estimate (in physical, non-monetary 

terms, such as crash rates, ridership 

estimates, emissions levels, etc.) should 

be provided. 

The lack of a useful analysis of 

expected project benefits and costs may 

be the basis for not selecting a project 

for award of a TIGER Discretionary 

Grant to an applicant. If it is clear to 

DOT that the total benefits of a project 

are not reasonably likely to justify the 

project’s costs, DOT will not award a 

TIGER Discretionary Grant to the 

project. 

Detailed guidance for the preparation 

of benefit-cost analyses is provided in 

Appendix A. Benefits should be 

presented, whenever possible, in a 

tabular form showing benefits and costs 

in each year for the useful life of the 

project. Benefits and costs should both 

be discounted to the year 2012, and 

present discounted values of both the 

stream of benefits and the stream of 

costs should be calculated. If the project 

has multiple parts, each of which has 

independent utility, the benefits and 

costs of each part should be estimated 

and presented separately. The results of 

the benefit-cost analysis should be 

summarized in the Project Narrative 

section of the application itself, but the 

details may be presented in an 

attachment to the application if the full 

analysis cannot be included within the 

page limit for the project narrative. 

Evaluation of Project Performance: 

Each applicant selected for TIGER 

Discretionary Grant funding will be 

required to work with DOT on the 

development and implementation of a 

plan to collect information and report 

on the project’s performance with 

respect to the relevant long-term 

outcomes that are expected to be 

achieved through construction of the 

project. 

(b) Job Creation and Near-Term 

Economic Activity 

In order to measure a project’s 

alignment with this criterion, DOT will 

assess whether the project promotes the 

short- or long-term creation or 

preservation of jobs and whether the 

project rapidly promotes new or 

expanded business opportunities during 

construction of the project or thereafter. 

Applicants are encouraged to provide 

information to assist DOT in making 

these assessments, including the total 

amount of funds that will be expended 

on construction and constructionrelated activities by all of the entities 

participating in the project and, to the 

extent measurable, the number and type 

of jobs to be created and/or preserved by 

the project by calendar quarters during 

construction and annually thereafter. 

Applicants should also identify any 

business enterprises to be created or 

benefited by the project during its 

construction and once it becomes 

operational.5

DOT will continue to apply the 

Updated Implementing Guidance for the 

American Recovery and Reinvestment 

Act of 2009 issued by the Office of 

Management and Budget (‘‘OMB’’) on 

April 3, 2009 (the ‘‘OMB Guidance’’) to 

the TIGER Discretionary Grants program 


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6Each applicant should demonstrate that any 

potential grant funding awarded to their project can 

be obligated no later than June 30, 2013, in order 

to give DOT comfort that the TIGER Discretionary 

Grant funds are likely to be obligated in advance of 

the September 30, 2013, statutory deadline, and that 

any unexpected delays will not put TIGER 

Discretionary Grant funds at risk of expiring before 

they are obligated. 

7All regionally significant projects requiring an 

action by the FHWA or the FTA must be in the 

metropolitan transportation plan, TIP and STIP. 

Further, in air quality non-attainment and 

maintenance areas, all regionally significant 

projects, regardless of the funding source, must be 

included in the conforming metropolitan 

transportation plan and TIP. To the extent a project 

is required to be on a metropolitan transportation 

plan, TIP and/or STIP it will not receive a TIGER 

Discretionary Grant until it is included in such 

plans. Projects not currently included in these plans 

can be amended in by the State and MPO. Projects 

that are not required to be in long range 

transportation plans, STIPs and TIPs will not need 

to be included in such plans in order to receive a 

TIGER Discretionary Grant. Freight and passenger 

rail projects are not required to be on the State Rail 

Plans called for in the Passenger Rail Investment 

and Improvement Act of 2008. This is consistent 

with the exemption for high speed and intercity 

passenger rail projects under the Recovery Act. 

However, applicants seeking funding for freight and 

passenger rail projects are encouraged to 

demonstrate that they have done sufficient planning 

to ensure that projects fit into a prioritized list of 

capital needs and are consistent with long-range 

goals. 

as a matter of policy, and consistent 

with applicable Federal laws. 

Applicants are encouraged to provide 

information to assist DOT in assessing 

(1) whether the project will promote the 

creation of job opportunities for lowincome workers through the use of best 

practice hiring programs and 

apprenticeship (including preapprenticeship) programs; (2) whether 

the project will provide maximum 

practicable opportunities for small 

businesses and disadvantaged business 

enterprises, including veteran-owned 

small businesses and service disabled 

veteran-owned small businesses; (3) 

whether the project will make effective 

use of community-based organizations 

in connecting disadvantaged workers 

with economic opportunities; (4) 

whether the project will support entities 

that have a sound track record on labor 

practices and compliance with Federal 

laws ensuring that American workers 

are safe and treated fairly; and (5) 

whether the project implements best 

practices, consistent with our Nation’s 

civil rights and equal opportunity laws, 

for ensuring that all individuals— 

regardless of race, gender, age, 

disability, and national origin—benefit 

from TIGER grant funding. 

To the extent possible, applicants 

should indicate whether the 

populations most likely to benefit from 

the creation or preservation of jobs or 

new or expanded business opportunities 

are from Economically Distressed Areas. 

In addition, to the extent possible, 

applicants should indicate whether the 

project’s procurement plan is likely to 

create follow-on jobs and near-term 

economic activity for manufacturers and 

suppliers that support the construction 

industry. 

In evaluating a project’s alignment 

with this criterion, DOT will assess 

whether a project is ready to proceed 

rapidly upon receipt of a TIGER 

Discretionary Grant (see Appendix C: 

Additional Information on Project 

Readiness Guidelines for further 

details), as evidenced by: 

(i) Project Schedule: Applicants must 

include a detailed project schedule in this 

section of their application, which should 

include major and minor project milestones. 

If the project will be completed in individual 

segments or phases, these segments or phases 

must be described individually. A feasible 

and sufficiently detailed project schedule 

demonstrating that the project can begin 

construction quickly upon receipt of a TIGER 

Discretionary Grant,6 and that the grant funds 

will be spent steadily and expeditiously once 

construction starts; the schedule should 

show how many direct, on-project jobs are 

expected to be created or sustained during 

each calendar quarter after the project is 

underway. Any applicant that is applying for 

a TIGER Discretionary Grant and does not 

own all of the property or right-of-way 

required to complete the project should 

provide evidence that the property and/or 

right-of-way owner whose permission is 

required to complete the project supports the 

application and will cooperate in carrying 

out the activities to be supported by the 

TIGER Discretionary Grant; 

(ii) Environmental Approvals: Receipt (or 

reasonably anticipated receipt) of all 

environmental approvals and permits 

necessary for the project to proceed to 

construction on the timeline specified in the 

project schedule and necessary to meet the 

statutory obligation deadline, including 

satisfaction of all Federal, State and local 

requirements and completion of the National 

Environmental Policy Act (‘‘NEPA’’) process; 

To demonstrate satisfaction of this 

requirement, applicants will be asked to 

provide assurances with their preapplications and evidence with their 

applications that NEPA review is complete or 

substantially complete and submit relevant 

draft or final NEPA documentation— 

preferably by way of a Web site link—for 

DOT review. 

DOT is unlikely to select a project for 

TIGER Discretionary Grant funding if it 

involves, or potentially involves, significant 

environmental impacts and/or is not clearly 

likely to complete required environmental 

and regulatory reviews in time to meet the 

obligation deadline of September 30, 2013. 

If an applicant has not substantially 

completed the NEPA process the applicant 

should provide information on the project’s 

current status in the NEPA process and an 

estimate of the latest date that the NEPA 

process is reasonably expected to be 

completed. If an applicant has not initiated 

the NEPA process, the applicant must 

provide a reasonable justification for why the 

NEPA process has not yet been initiated as 

of the date of this notice and an assurance 

that the necessary environmental reviews can 

be completed with enough time for any postNEPA, pre-obligation activities to be 

completed by June 30, 2013, in order to give 

DOT comfort that all of the TIGER 

Discretionary Grant funds are likely to be 

obligated in advance of the September 30, 

2013, statutory deadline. An example of a 

reasonable justification for why an applicant 

has not initiated NEPA review would be if, 

prior to the availability of TIGER 

Discretionary Grant funds, there was no 

reasonable expectation of receiving Federal 

funding for the project. A project selected for 

award that has not completed the NEPA 

process may not be permitted to use grant 

funds for construction and related activities 

until NEPA is complete and all other 

necessary environmental approvals have 

been received. 

An applicant seeking to demonstrate 

timely environmental review and permitting 

should submit the information listed below 

with its application: 

a. The information required under Sections 

VII(C)(2)(V) and VII(F)–(G) (Contents of 

Applications) of this notice; 

b. Environmental studies or other 

documents—preferably by way of a Web site 

link—that describe in detail known potential 

project impacts, and possible mitigation for 

those impacts; 

c. A description of completed, or planned 

and anticipated coordination with Federal 

and State regulatory agencies for permits and 

approvals; 

d. An estimate of the time required for 

completion of NEPA and all other required 

Federal, State or local environmental 

approvals; and 

e. An identification of the proposed NEPA 

class of action (i.e., Categorical Exclusion, 

Environmental Assessment, or 

Environmental Impact Statement). 

(iii) Legislative Approvals: Receipt of all 

necessary legislative approvals (for example, 

legislative authority to charge user fees or set 

toll rates), and evidence of support from State 

and local elected officials; evidence of 

support from all relevant State and local 

officials is not required, however, the 

evidence should demonstrate that the project 

is broadly supported; 

(iv) State and Local Planning: The 

planning requirements of the operating 

administration administering the TIGER 

project will apply.7 Where required by an 

operating administration, applicants should 

demonstrate that a project that is required to 

be included in the relevant State, 

metropolitan, and local planning documents, 

has been or will be included. One way 

applicants may do this is by providing a link 

to a Web site showing the planning 

documents. If the project is not included in 

the relevant planning documents at the time 

the application is submitted, applicants 

should submit a certification from the 

appropriate planning agency that actions are 

underway at the time of the application to 


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include the project in the relevant planning 

document; 

(v) Technical Feasibility: The technical 

feasibility of the project should be 

demonstrated by previously performed and/ 

or ongoing engineering and design studies 

and activities; the development of design 

criteria and/or a basis of design; the basis for 

the cost estimate presented in the TIGER 

application, including the identification of 

contingency levels appropriate to its level of 

design; and any scope, schedule, and budget 

risk-mitigation measures. Applicants must 

include a detailed statement of work that 

focuses on the technical and engineering 

aspects of the project. If the project will be 

completed in individual segments or phases, 

these segments or phases must be described 

individually. For projects generating ongoing 

operating expenses, an estimate of those 

expenses and a basis for the estimate must be 

included. Technical feasibility also includes 

the technical capacity of the project sponsor, 

including a staffing and management plan, 

demonstrated experience in successfully 

implementing (on-time and on-budget) 

similar capital investments, and other 

indications of sponsor and partner technical 

capacity to construct the project; and 

(vi) Financial Feasibility: The viability and 

completeness of the project’s financing 

package (assuming the availability of the 

requested TIGER Discretionary Grant funds), 

including evidence of stable and reliable 

capital and (as appropriate) operating 

revenue commitments sufficient to cover 

estimated costs; the availability of 

contingency reserves should planned capital 

or operating revenue sources not materialize; 

evidence of the financial condition of the 

project sponsor; and evidence of the grant 

recipient’s ability to manage grants. 

Applicants must demonstrate financial 

feasibility by including a detailed project 

budget in this section of their application, 

which should include a detailed breakdown 

of how the funds will be spent that provides 

estimates—both dollar amount and 

percentage of cost—of how much each 

activity would cost—e.g. preparation, 

grading, asphalt, etc. If the project will be 

completed in individual segments or phases, 

a budget for each individual segment or 

phase must be included. 

DOT reserves the right to revoke any 

award of TIGER Discretionary Grant 

funds and to award such funds to 

another project to the extent that such 

funds cannot be timely expended and/ 

or construction does not begin in 

accordance with the project schedule. 

Because projects have different 

schedules DOT will consider on a caseby-case basis how much time after 

selection for award of a TIGER 

Discretionary Grant each project has 

before funds must be obligated 

(consistent with law) and construction 

started through an executed grant 

agreement between the selected 

applicant and Cognizant Modal 

Administration. This deadline will be 

specified for each TIGER Discretionary 

Grant in the project-specific grant 

agreements signed by the grant 

recipients and will be based on critical 

path items identified by applicants in 

response to items (i) through (vi) above. 

DOT expects that pre-conditions be 

complete and TIGER Discretionary 

Grants funds obligated on or before June 

30, 2013, in order to give DOT comfort 

that all TIGER Discretionary Grant funds 

will be obligated before the statutory 

deadline of September 30, 2013. By 

statute, DOT’s ability to obligate funds 

for TIGER Discretionary Grants expires 

on September 30, 2013, and DOT has no 

authority to extend the deadline. 

2. Secondary Selection Criteria 

(a) Innovation 

In order to measure a project’s 

alignment with this criterion, DOT will 

assess the extent to which the project 

uses innovative technology (including, 

for example, intelligent transportation 

systems, dynamic pricing, value 

capture, rail wayside or on-board energy 

recovery, smart cards, real-time 

dispatching, active traffic management, 

radio frequency identification (RFID), or 

others) to pursue one or more of the 

long-term outcomes outlined above and/ 

or to significantly enhance the 

operational performance of the 

transportation system. DOT will also 

assess the extent to which the project 

incorporates innovations that 

demonstrate the value of new 

approaches to, among other things, 

transportation funding and finance, 

contracting, project delivery, congestion 

management, safety management, asset 

management, or long-term operations 

and maintenance. The applicant should 

clearly demonstrate that the innovation 

is designed to pursue one or more of the 

long-term outcomes outlined above and/ 

or significantly enhance the 

transportation system. 

DOT will consider the extent to which 

innovative, multi-modal projects might 

be difficult to fund under other 

programs and will give priority to 

projects that align well with the Primary 

Selection Criteria but are unlikely to 

receive funding under traditional 

programs. 

(b) Partnership 

(i) Jurisdictional & Stakeholder 

Collaboration: In order to measure a 

project’s alignment with this criterion, 

DOT will assess the project’s 

involvement of non-Federal entities and 

the use of non-Federal funds, including 

the scope of involvement and share of 

total funding. DOT will give priority to 

projects that receive financial 

commitments from, or otherwise 

involve, State and local governments, 

other public entities, or private or 

nonprofit entities, including projects 

that engage parties that are not 

traditionally involved in transportation 

projects, such as nonprofit community 

groups. Pursuant to the OMB Guidance, 

DOT will give priority to projects that 

make effective use of community-based 

organizations in connecting 

disadvantaged people with economic 

opportunities. Letters of commitment 

and other supporting documentation 

showing existing or confirmed 

collaboration, partnerships, etc., should 

be provided (preferably through a Web 

site link) to demonstrate alignment with 

this criterion. 

In compliance with the FY 2012 

Appropriations Act, DOT will give 

priority to projects for which a TIGER 

Discretionary Grant will help to 

complete an overall financing package. 

An applicant should clearly 

demonstrate in the application the 

extent to which the project cannot be 

readily and efficiently completed 

without Federal assistance, and the 

extent to which other sources of Federal 

assistance are or are not readily 

available for the project. DOT will 

assess the amount of private debt and 

equity to be invested in the project or 

the amount of co-investment from State, 

local or other non-profit sources. 

DOT will also assess the extent to 

which the project application 

demonstrates collaboration among 

neighboring or regional jurisdictions to 

achieve National, regional or 

metropolitan benefits. Multiple States or 

jurisdictions may submit a joint 

application and should identify a lead 

State or jurisdiction as the primary 

point of contact. Where multiple States 

or jurisdictions are submitting a joint 

application, the application should 

demonstrate how the project costs are 

apportioned between the States or 

jurisdictions to assist DOT in making 

the distributional determinations 

described below in Section III(C) 

(Distribution of Funds). 

(ii) Disciplinary Integration: In order 

to demonstrate the value of partnerships 

across government agencies that serve 

various public service missions and to 

promote collaboration on the objectives 

outlined in this notice, DOT will give 

priority to projects that are supported, 

financially or otherwise, by nontransportation public agencies that are 

pursuing similar objectives. For 

example, DOT will give priority to 

transportation projects that are 

coordinated with economic 

development, housing, water 

infrastructure and land use plans and 

policies; similarly, DOT will give 

priority to transportation projects that 


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8See footnote 7, above. 9For FHWA and FTA committed funds are 

defined as: ‘‘Funds that have been dedicated or 

obligated for transportation purposes’’ as described 

in 23 CFR 450.104. 

encourage energy efficiency or improve 

the environment and are supported by 

relevant public agencies with energy or 

environmental missions. Projects that 

grow out of a robust planning process— 

such as those conducted with TIGER II 

Planning Grants, the Department of 

Housing and Urban Development’s 

Regional Planning Grants, or the 

Environmental Protection Agency’s 

Brownfield Area-Wide Planning Pilot 

Program as well as technical assistance 

programs focused on livability or 

economic development planning—will 

also be given priority. 

III. Evaluation and Selection Process 

A. Evaluation Process 

TIGER Discretionary Grant 

applications will be evaluated in 

accordance with the below discussed 

evaluation process. DOT will establish a 

pre-application evaluation team to 

review each pre-application that is 

received by DOT on or prior to the PreApplication Deadline. This evaluation 

team will be organized and led by the 

Office of the Secretary and will include 

members from the relevant modal 

administrations in DOT with the most 

experience and/or expertise in the 

relevant project areas (the ‘‘Cognizant 

Modal Administrations’’). This 

evaluation team will be responsible for 

analyzing whether the pre-application 

satisfies the following key threshold 

requirements: 

1. The project is an Eligible Project; 

2. NEPA has been addressed, as 

described above in Section II(B)(2)(b)(ii) 

(Environmental Approvals); 

3. The project is included in the 

relevant State, metropolitan, and local 

planning documents, or will be 

included, if applicable; 

4. The project expects to be ready to 

obligate all of the TIGER Discretionary 

Grant funds no later than June 30, 

2013;8 and 

5. Local matching funds to support 20 

percent or more of the costs for the 

project are identified and committed in 

applications for projects in urban areas.9

To the extent the pre-application 

evaluation team determines that a preapplication does not satisfy these key 

threshold requirements, DOT will 

inform the project sponsor that an 

application for the project will not be 

reviewed unless the application 

submitted on or prior to the Application 

Deadline can demonstrate that the 

requirement has been addressed. 

DOT will establish application 

evaluation teams to review each 

application that is received by DOT 

prior to the Application Deadline. These 

evaluation teams will be organized and 

led by the Office of the Secretary and 

will include members from each of the 

Cognizant Modal Administrations. 

These representatives will include 

technical and professional staff with 

relevant experience and/or expertise. 

The evaluation teams will be 

responsible for evaluating and rating all 

of the projects and making funding 

recommendations to the Secretary. The 

evaluation process will require team 

members to evaluate and rate 

applications individually before 

convening with other members to 

discuss ratings. 

DOT will not assign specific 

numerical scores to projects based on 

the selection criteria outlined above in 

Section II(A) (Selection Criteria). Rather, 

ratings of ‘‘highly recommended,’’ 

‘‘recommended,’’ ‘‘acceptable,’’ or ‘‘not 

recommended’’ will be assigned to 

projects for each of the selection criteria. 

DOT will award TIGER Discretionary 

Grants to projects that are well-aligned 

with one or more of the selection 

criteria. In addition, DOT will consider 

whether a project has a negative effect 

on any of the selection criteria, and any 

such negative effect may reduce the 

likelihood that the project will receive 

a TIGER Discretionary Grant. To the 

extent the initial evaluation process 

does not sufficiently differentiate among 

highly rated projects, DOT will use a 

similar rating process to re-assess the 

projects that were highly rated and 

identify those that should be most 

highly rated. 

DOT will give more weight to the two 

Primary Selection Criteria (Long-Term 

Outcomes and Job Creation & NearTerm Economic Activity), which will be 

weighted equally, than to the two 

Secondary Selection Criteria 

(Innovation and Partnership) which will 

also be weighted equally. The following 

table summarizes the weighting of the 

selection criteria, as described in the 

preceding paragraphs: 

Primary Selection Criteria 

Long-Term Outcomes ..................... DOT will give more weight to this criterion than to either of the Secondary Selection Criteria. In addition, 

this criterion has a minimum threshold requirement. Projects that are unable to demonstrate a likelihood 

of significant long-term benefits in any of the five long-term outcomes identified in this criterion will not 

proceed in the evaluation process. 

Job Creation & Near-Term Economic Activity.DOT will give more weight to this criterion than to either of the Secondary Selection Criteria. This criterion 

will be considered after it is determined that a project demonstrates a likelihood of significant long-term 

benefits in at least one of the five long-term outcomes identified in the long-term outcomes criterion. 

Secondary Selection Criteria 

Innovation & Partnership ................ DOT will give less weight to these criteria than to the Primary Selection Criteria. These criteria will be 

weighted equally. 

As noted below in Section III(C) 

(Distribution of Funds), upon 

completion of this competitive rating 

process DOT will analyze the 

preliminary list and determine whether 

the purely competitive ratings are 

consistent with the distributional 

requirements of the FY 2012 

Appropriations Act. If necessary, DOT 

will adjust the list of recommended 

projects to satisfy the statutory 

distributional requirements while 

remaining as consistent as possible with 

the competitive ratings. The Secretary of 

Transportation will make the final 

project selections. 

B. Evaluation of Eligibility 

To be selected for a TIGER 

Discretionary Grant, a project must be 

an Eligible Project and the applicant 

must be an Eligible Applicant. DOT may 

consider one or more components of a 

large project to be an Eligible Project, 

but only to the extent that the 

components have independent utility, 


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10For Census 2000, the Census Bureau defined an 

Urbanized Area (UA) as an area that consists of 

densely settled territory that contains 50,000 or 

more people. Updated lists of UAs are available on 

the Census Bureau Web site. Urban Clusters (UCs) 

will be considered rural areas for purposes of the 

TIGER Discretionary Grant program. 

meaning the components themselves, 

not the project of which they are a part, 

are Eligible Projects and satisfy the 

selection criteria identified above in 

Section II(A) (Selection Criteria). For 

these projects, the benefits described in 

an application must be related to the 

components of the project for which 

funding is requested, not the full project 

of which they are a part. DOT will not 

fund individual phases of a project if 

the benefits of completing only these 

phases would not align well with the 

selection criteria specified in this Notice 

because the overall project would still 

be incomplete. 

C. Transparency of Process 

In the interest of transparency, DOT 

will disclose as much of the information 

related to its evaluation process as is 

practical and consistent with law. DOT 

expects that the TIGER Discretionary 

Grant program may be reviewed and/or 

audited by Congress, the U.S. 

Government Accountability Office, 

DOT’s Inspector General, or others, and 

has taken, and will continue to take 

steps to document its decision-making 

process. 

IV. Grant Administration 

DOT expects that each TIGER 

Discretionary Grant will be 

administered by one of the Cognizant 

Modal Administration, pursuant to a 

grant agreement between the TIGER 

Discretionary Grant recipient and the 

Cognizant Modal Administration. 

Service Outcome Agreements and 

Stakeholder Agreements will be 

incorporated into the TIGER grant 

agreements, where appropriate. In 

accordance with the FY 2012 

Appropriations Act, the Secretary has 

the discretion to delegate such 

responsibilities to the appropriate 

operating administration. 

Applicable Federal laws, rules and 

regulations of the Cognizant Modal 

Administration administering the 

project will apply to projects that 

receive TIGER Discretionary Grants. 

V. Projects in Rural Areas 

The FY 2012 Appropriations Act 

directs that not less than $120 million 

of the funds provided for TIGER 

Discretionary Grants are to be used for 

projects in rural areas. For purposes of 

this notice, DOT is defining ‘‘rural area’’ 

as any area not in an Urbanized Area, 

as such term is defined by the Census 

Bureau,10 and will consider a project to 

be in a rural area if all or the majority 

of a project (determined by geographic 

location(s) where majority of project 

money is to be spent) is located in a 

rural area. Therefore, if all or the 

majority of a project is located in a rural 

area, such a project is eligible to apply 

for less than $10 million, but at least $1 

million in TIGER Discretionary Grant 

funds, and up to 100% of the project’s 

costs may be paid for with federal 

funds. To the extent more than a de 

minimis portion of a project is located 

in an Urbanized Area, applicants should 

identify the estimated percentage of 

project costs that will be spent in 

Urbanized Areas and the estimated 

percentage that will be spent in rural 

areas. 

VI. TIGER TIFIA Payments 

Up to $175 million of the $500 

million available for TIGER 

Discretionary Grants may be used for 

TIGER TIFIA Payments. Applicants 

seeking TIGER TIFIA Payments should 

apply in accordance with all of the 

criteria and guidance specified in this 

notice for TIGER Discretionary Grant 

applications and will be evaluated 

concurrently with all other applicants. 

Any applicant seeking a TIGER TIFIA 

Payment is also required to submit a 

TIFIA letter of interest concurrent with 

the TIGER TIFIA Payment application. 

If selected for a TIGER TIFIA Payment, 

the applicant must comply with all of 

the TIFIA program’s standard 

application and approval requirements 

including submission of a complete 

TIFIA application and $50,000 

application fee (the TIFIA program 

guide can be downloaded from http:// 

tifia.fhwa.dot.gov/). 

Applicants should demonstrate that 

the TIFIA loan will be ready to close on 

or before June 30, 2013, in accordance 

with the guidance specified above in 

Section II(B)(1)(b) (Job Creation & NearTerm Economic Activity). DOT’s TIFIA 

Joint Program Office will assist DOT in 

determining a project’s readiness to 

proceed rapidly upon receipt of a TIGER 

TIFIA Payment. 

Applicants seeking TIGER TIFIA 

Payments may also apply for a TIGER 

Discretionary Grant for the same project 

and must indicate the type(s) of funding 

for which they are applying clearly on 

the face of their applications. An 

applicant for a TIGER TIFIA Payment 

must submit an application pursuant to 

this notice for a TIGER TIFIA Payment 

even if it does not wish to apply for a 

TIGER Discretionary Grant. 

Unless otherwise expressly noted 

herein, any and all requirements that 

apply to TIGER Discretionary Grants 

pursuant to the FY 2012 Appropriations 

Act, this notice, or otherwise, apply to 

TIGER TIFIA Payments. 

Pre-Application and Application Cycle 

VII. Pre-Application and Application 

Cycle 

A. Two Stages of Application Cycle 

The application cycle for TIGER 

Discretionary Grants has two stages: 

1. Pre-Application: In Stage 1, 

applicants must submit a preapplication form to the DOT. This step 

qualifies applicants to submit an 

application in Stage 2. No application 

submitted during Stage 2 that does not 

correlate with a properly completed 

Stage 1 pre-application will be 

considered. 

2. Application: In Stage 2, applicants 

must submit a complete application 

package through Grants.gov. If an 

applicant is seeking a TIGER TIFIA 

payment, applicants must also submit 

electronically a TIFIA letter of interest 

to the TIFIA office at 

TIFIACredit@dot.gov. TIFIA letters of 

interest must comply with all of the 

program’s standard requirements (the 

TIFIA program guide can be 

downloaded from http:// 

tifia.fhwa.dot.gov/). 

Pre-applications must be submitted to 

DOT by the Pre-Application Deadline, 

which is February 20, 2012, at 5 p.m. 

EST. Final applications must be 

submitted through Grants.gov by the 

Application Deadline, which is March 

19, 2012, at 5 p.m. EDT. The DOT preapplication system will open on or 

before February 13, 2012, to allow 

prospective applicants to submit preapplications. Subsequently, the 

Grants.gov ‘‘Apply’’ function will open 

on February 22, 2012, allowing 

applicants to submit applications. While 

applicants are encouraged to submit 

pre-applications in advance of the PreApplication Deadline, pre-applications 

will not be reviewed until after the PreApplication Deadline. Similarly, while 

applicants are encouraged to submit 

applications in advance of the 

Application Deadline, applications will 

not be evaluated, and selections for 

awards will not be made, until after the 

Application Deadline. 

Pre-applications (stage 1) must be 

submitted to the DOT. The preapplication form will be available on the 

DOT Web site at www.dot.gov/TIGER by 

January 30, 2012, together with 

instructions for submitting the preapplication form electronically to DOT. 


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Applications (Stage 2) must be 

submitted through Grants.gov. To apply 

for funding through Grants.gov, 

applicants must be properly registered. 

Complete instructions on how to 

register and submit applications can be 

found at www.grants.gov. Please be 

aware that the registration process 

usually takes 2–4 weeks and must be 

completed before an application can be 

submitted. If interested parties 

experience difficulties at any point 

during the registration or application 

process, please call the Grants.gov 

Customer Support Hotline at 1–(800) 

518–4726, Monday-Friday from 7 a.m. 

to 9 p.m. EST. Additional information 

on applying through Grants.gov is 

available in Appendix B. 

B. Contents of Pre-Applications 

An applicant for a TIGER 

Discretionary Grant should provide all 

of the information requested below in 

its pre-application form. DOT reserves 

the right to ask any applicant to 

supplement the data in its preapplication, but expects preapplications to be complete upon 

submission. Applicants must complete 

the pre-application form and send it to 

DOT electronically on or prior to the 

Pre-Application Deadline, in accordance 

with the instructions specified at 

www.dot.gov/TIGER. The preapplication form must include the 

following information: 

i. Name of applicant (if the 

application is to be submitted by more 

than one entity, a lead applicant must 

be identified); 

ii. Applicant’s DUNS (Data Universal 

Numbering System) number; 

iii. Type of applicant (State 

government, local government, U.S. 

territory, Tribal government, transit 

agency, port authority, metropolitan 

planning organization, or other unit of 

government); 

iv. State(s) where the project is 

located; 

v. County(s) where the project is 

located; 

vi. City(s) where the project is located; 

vii. Information about the geographic 

location of the project for mapping 

purposes using one of the following 

methods: 

1. A geographic information system 

(GIS) file that indicates the location of 

the project; 

2. For locating point specific projects, 

latitude and longitude in decimal 

degrees to an accuracy of 5 decimal 

places (e.g. 0.12345) using the WGS 84 

datum (the default datum used by 

Global Positioning System (GPS) 

equipment; or 

3. For linear projects on existing 

roads, route number (Interstate, U.S. 

Route, or State Route) or road name and 

the latitude and longitude in decimal 

degrees to an accuracy of 5 decimal 

places (e.g. 0.12345) of the beginning 

and ending points of the project; 

viii. Project title (descriptive); 

ix. Project type: highway, transit, 

freight rail, intercity passenger rail, 

marine port, multimodal, or bicycle and 

pedestrian activity (if the project is a 

multimodal project, the pre-application 

form will require that applicants 

provide additional information 

identifying the affected modes); 

x. Whether the project is requesting a 

TIGER TIFIA Payment; 

xi. Project description (describe the 

project in plain English, using no more 

than 50 words (e.g. ‘‘the project will 

replace the existing bridge over the W 

river on interstate-X between the cities 

of Y and Z’’) do not describe the 

project’s benefits, background, or 

alignment with the selection criteria 

here); 

xii. Total cost of the project; 

xiii. Total amount of TIGER 

Discretionary Grant funds requested; 

xiv. Contact name, phone number, 

email address, and physical address for 

applicant; 

xv. Congressional districts affected by 

the project; 

xvi. Type of jurisdiction where the 

project is located (urban or rural, as 

defined above in Section V (Projects in 

Rural Areas)); 

xvii. Whether or not the project is in 

an Economically Distressed Area, as 

defined in Section II(A) (Selection 

Criteria); 

xviii. An assurance that the NEPA 

and/or environmental review process is 

complete, substantially complete, or in 

progress (and the expected outcome of 

the process) and is expected to be 

completed in time to meet the obligation 

deadline of September 30, 2013; 

xix. The schedule for completing 

right-of-way acquisition and final 

design; approval of plans, 

specifications, and estimates; 

xx. The date that the project is 

expected to be ready for obligation of 

grant funds, which should be no later 

than June 30, 2013, in order to give DOT 

comfort that the funds will be obligated 

before they expire on September 30, 

2013; and 

xxi. An assurance that non-Federal 

matching funds to support 20 percent or 

more of the costs of the project are 

identified and committed (as noted in 

Section I (Background), this 

requirement does not apply to projects 

located in rural areas, as defined above 

in Section V (Projects in Rural Areas)). 

To the extent the pre-application does 

not provide adequate assurances for 

items xvii through xxii, DOT will 

inform the project sponsor that an 

application for the project will not be 

reviewed unless the application 

submitted on or prior to the Application 

Deadline can demonstrate that each 

requirement has been addressed. 

C. Contents of Applications 

An applicant for a TIGER 

Discretionary Grant must include all of 

the information requested below in its 

application. DOT reserves the right to 

ask any applicant to supplement the 

data in its application, but expects 

applications to be complete upon 

submission. To the extent practical, 

DOT encourages applicants to provide 

data and evidence of project merits in a 

form that is publicly available or 

verifiable. For TIGER TIFIA Payments, 

these requirements apply only to the 

applications required under this notice; 

the standard TIFIA letter of interest and 

loan application requirements, 

including the standard $50,000.00 

application fee, are separately described 

in the Program Guide and Application 

Form found at 

http://tifia.fhwa.dot.gov/. 

1. Standard Form 424, Application for 

Federal Assistance 

Please see www07.grants.gov/assets/ 

SF424Instructions.pdf for instructions 

on how to complete the SF 424, which 

is part of the standard Grants.gov 

submission. Additional clarifying 

guidance and FAQs to assist applicants 

in completing the SF–424 will be 

available at www.dot.gov/TIGER by 

February 23, 2012, when the ‘‘Apply’’ 

function within Grants.gov opens to 

accept applications under this notice. 

2. Project Narrative (Attachment to SF 

424) 

The project narrative must respond to 

the application requirements outlined 

below. DOT recommends that the 

project narrative be prepared with 

standard formatting preferences (e.g. a 

single-spaced document, using a 

standard 12-point font, such as Times 

New Roman, with 1-inch margins). 

A TIGER Discretionary Grant 

application must include information 

required for DOT to assess each of the 

criteria specified in Section II(A) 

(Selection Criteria), as such criteria are 

explained in Section II(B) (Additional 

Guidance on Selection Criteria). 

Applicants must demonstrate the 

responsiveness of a project to any 

pertinent selection criteria with the 

most relevant information that 

applicants can provide, regardless of 


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whether such information has been 

specifically requested, or identified, in 

this notice. Applicants should provide 

concrete evidence of project milestones, 

financial capacity and commitment in 

order to support project readiness. Any 

such information shall be considered 

part of the application, not 

supplemental, for purposes of the 

application size limits identified below 

in Part D (Length of Applications). 

Information provided pursuant to this 

paragraph must be quantified, to the 

extent possible, to describe the project’s 

benefits to the Nation, a metropolitan 

area, or a region. Information provided 

pursuant to this paragraph should 

include projections for both the build 

and no-build scenarios for the project 

for a point in time at least 20 years 

beyond the project’s completion date or 

the lifespan of the project, whichever is 

closest to the present. 

All applications should include a 

detailed description of the proposed 

project and geospatial data for the 

project, including a map of the project’s 

location and its connections to existing 

transportation infrastructure. An 

application should also include a 

description of how the project addresses 

the needs of an urban and/or rural area. 

An application should clearly describe 

the transportation challenges that the 

project aims to address, and how the 

project will address these challenges. 

The description should include relevant 

data such as, for example, passenger or 

freight volumes, congestion levels, 

infrastructure condition, or safety 

experience. 

DOT recommends that the project 

narrative generally adhere to the 

following basic outline, and include a 

table of contents, maps and graphics 

that make the information easier to 

review: 

I. Project Description (including 

information on the expected users of the 

project, a description of the transportation 

challenges that the project aims to address, 

and how the project will address these 

challenges); 

II. Project Parties (information about the 

grant recipient and other project parties); 

III. Grant Funds and Sources/Uses of 

Project Funds (information about the amount 

of grant funding requested, availability/ 

commitment of funds sources and uses of all 

project funds, total project costs, percentage 

of project costs that would be paid for with 

TIGER Discretionary Grant funds, and the 

identity and percentage shares of all parties 

providing funds for the project (including 

Federal funds provided under other 

programs)); 

IV. Selection Criteria (information about 

how the project aligns with each of the 

primary and secondary selection criteria and 

a description of the results of the benefit-cost 

analysis): 

a. Long-Term Outcomes 

i. State of Good Repair 

ii. Economic Competitiveness 

iii. Livability 

iv. Sustainability 

v. Safety 

b. Job Creation & Near-Term Economic 

Activity 

c. Innovation 

d. Partnership 

e. Results of Benefit-Cost Analysis 

V. Project Readiness and NEPA 

(information about how ready the project is 

to move forward quickly, including 

information about the project schedule, 

environmental approvals, legislative 

approvals, state and local planning, technical 

feasibility, financial feasibility, and 

stakeholder partnerships and implementation 

agreements); 

VI. Federal Wage Rate Certification (an 

application must include a certification, 

signed by the applicant, stating that it will 

comply with the requirements of subchapter 

IV of chapter 31 of title 40, United States 

Code (Federal wage rate requirements), as 

required by the FY 2011 Continuing 

Appropriations Act); and 

VII. To the extent relevant, the final page 

of the application should describe (in one 

page or less) any material changes that were 

made to the pre-application form. 

The purpose of this recommended 

format is to ensure that applications are 

provided in a format that clearly 

addresses the application requirements 

and makes critical information readily 

apparent and easy to locate. 

D. Length of Applications 

The project narrative may not exceed 

30 pages in length. Documentation 

supporting the assertions made in the 

narrative portion may also be provided, 

but should be limited to relevant 

information. If possible, Web site links 

to supporting documentation (including 

a more detailed discussion of the 

benefit-cost analysis) should be 

provided rather than copies of these 

materials. At the applicant’s discretion, 

relevant materials provided previously 

to a Cognizant Modal Administration in 

support of a different DOT discretionary 

program (for example, New Starts or 

TIFIA) may be referenced and described 

as unchanged. To the extent referenced, 

this information need not be 

resubmitted for the TIGER Discretionary 

Grant application (although provision of 

a Web site link would facilitate DOT’s 

consideration of the information). DOT 

recommends use of appropriately 

descriptive file names (e.g., ‘‘Project 

Narrative,’’ ‘‘Maps,’’ ‘‘Memoranda of 

Understanding and Letters of Support,’’ 

etc.) for all attachments. Cover pages 

and tables of contents do not count 

towards the 30-page limit for the 

narrative portion of the application, and 

the Federal wage rate certification and 

one-page update of the pre-application 

form (if necessary) may also be outside 

of the 30-page narrative. Otherwise, the 

only substantive portions of the 

application that should exceed the 30- 

page limit are any supporting 

documents (including a more detailed 

discussion of the benefit-cost analysis) 

provided to support assertions or 

conclusions made in the 30-page 

narrative section. 

E. Contact Information 

Contact information is requested as 

part of the SF–424. DOT will use this 

information to inform parties of DOT’s 

decision regarding selection of projects, 

as well as to contact parties in the event 

that DOT needs additional information 

about an application. Contact 

information must be provided for a 

direct employee of the lead applicant 

organization. Contact information for a 

contractor, agent, or consultant of the 

lead applicant organization is 

insufficient for DOT’s purposes. 

F. National Environmental Policy Act 

Requirement 

An application for a TIGER 

Discretionary Grant must detail whether 

the project will significantly impact the 

natural, social and/or economic 

environment. If the NEPA process is 

completed, an applicant must indicate 

the date of, and provide a Web site link 

or other reference to, the final 

Categorical Exclusion, Finding of No 

Significant Impact or Record of 

Decision. If the NEPA process is 

underway but not complete, the 

application must detail where the 

project is in the process, indicate the 

anticipated date of completion and 

provide a Web site link or other 

reference to copies of any NEPA 

documents prepared. 

G. Environmentally Related Federal, 

State and Local Actions 

An application for a TIGER 

Discretionary Grant must indicate 

whether the proposed project requires 

actions by other agencies (e.g., permits), 

indicate the status of such actions and 

provide a Web site link or other 

reference to materials submitted to the 

other agencies, and/or demonstrate 

compliance with other Federal, State 

and local regulations as applicable, 

including, but not limited to, Section 

4(f) Parklands, Recreation Areas, 

Refuges, & Historic Properties; Section 

106 Historic and Culturally Significant 

Properties; Clean Water Act Wetlands 

and Water; Executive Orders Wetlands, 

Floodplains, Environmental Justice; 

Clean Air Act Air Quality (specifically 

note if the project is located in a 

nonattainment area); Endangered 


wreier-aviles on DSK5TPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
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11E.J. Mishan and Euston Quah, Cost-Benefit 

Analysis, 5th edition (New York: Routledge, 2007). 

Species Act Threatened and 

Endangered Biological Resources; 

Magnuson-Stevens Fishery 

Conservation and Management Act 

Essential Fish Habitat; and/or any State 

and local requirements. 

H. Protection of Confidential Business 

Information 

All information submitted as part of 

or in support of any application shall 

use publicly available data or data that 

can be made public and methodologies 

that are accepted by industry practice 

and standards, to the extent possible. If 

the application includes information 

that the applicant considers to be a trade 

secret or confidential commercial or 

financial information, the applicant 

should do the following: (1) Note on the 

front cover that the submission 

‘‘Contains Confidential Business 

Information (CBI);’’ (2) mark each 

affected page ‘‘CBI;’’ and (3) highlight or 

otherwise denote the CBI portions. DOT 

protects such information from 

disclosure to the extent allowed under 

applicable law. In the event DOT 

receives a Freedom of Information Act 

(FOIA) request for the information, DOT 

will follow the procedures described in 

its FOIA regulations at 49 CFR § 7.17. 

Only information that is ultimately 

determined to be confidential under that 

procedure will be exempt from 

disclosure under FOIA. 

VIII. Project Benefits 

DOT expects to identify and report on 

the benefits of the projects that it funds 

with TIGER Discretionary Grants. To 

this end, DOT will request that 

recipients of TIGER Discretionary 

Grants cooperate in Departmental efforts 

to collect and report on information 

related to the benefits produced by the 

projects that receive TIGER 

Discretionary Grants. 

Because of the limited nature of this 

program, these benefits are likely to be 

reported on a project-by-project basis 

and trends across projects that were 

selected for TIGER Discretionary Grants 

may not be readily available. In 

addition, because many of these benefits 

are long-term outcomes, it may be years 

before the value of the investments can 

be quantified and fully reported. DOT is 

considering the most appropriate way to 

collect and report information about 

these potential and actual project 

benefits. 

IX. Questions and Clarifications 

For further information concerning 

this notice please contact the TIGER 

Discretionary Grant program staff via 

email at TIGERGrants@dot.gov, or call 

Howard Hill at (202) 366–0301. A TDD 

is available for individuals who are deaf 

or hard of hearing at (202) 366–3993. 

DOT will regularly post answers to 

these questions and other important 

clarifications on DOT’s Web site at 

www.dot.gov/TIGER. 

Appendix A: Additional Information on 

Benefit-Cost Analysis 

Each applicant should provide evidence 

that the expected benefits of the project 

justify the costs (recognizing that some costs 

and benefits are difficult to quantify). If it is 

clear that the benefits do not justify the costs, 

the Department will not award a TIGER 

Discretionary Grant to the project. Benefits 

include the extent to which residents of the 

United States as a whole are made better off 

as a result of the project. 

The best applications are often prepared by 

transportation agencies that have used inhouse economic expertise and cost/benefit 

analysis to influence the design of the project 

from the beginning. All Applicants should 

also consult the BCA Resource Page available 

on the USDOT TIGER Web site (http:// 

www.dot.gov/TIGER) that will provide 

supplemental information, standard 

monetized values (where available), and 

updates for preparing a BCA. If after reading 

this appendix applicants need additional 

help, DOT staff are available to answer 

questions and offer technical assistance until 

the final application deadline has passed. 

This appendix provides general 

information and guidance on conducting an 

analysis. In addition to this guidance, 

applicants should refer to OMB Circulars A– 

4 and A–94 in preparing their analysis 

(http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars/). 

Circular A–4 also cites textbooks on costbenefit analysis (e.g., Mishan and Quah 11) if 

an applicant wants to review additional 

background material. 

In the Executive Summary for any benefitcost analysis, applicants should provide a 

project matrix describing the project and 

what it changes (see below). This can either 

be in Word or in Excel. The first column 

provides a description of the current 

infrastructure baseline (including anticipated 

changes over the analysis period) and 

identifies the problem that the project will 

address. The second column describes how 

the project would change the current 

infrastructure baseline. The third and fourth 

columns describe the impact of that change 

and the corresponding population that it 

affects. The fifth column identifies the 

corresponding societal benefit. The last 

columns summarize the results and reference 

where in the analysis they calculate the 

benefits. The matrix below provides an 

example of a completed matrix. 

If an application contains multiple separate 

projects (but that are linked together in a 

common objective), each of which has 

independent utility, the applicant should 

provide a separate matrix (and analysis) for 

each project. The Executive Summary should 

also include the full cost of a project, 

including Federal, State, local, and private 

funding, as well as expected operations and 

maintenance costs, and not simply the 

requested grant amount or the local amount. 

In addition to the matrix, the applicant 

should summarize all pertinent data and 

quantifiable cost and benefit calculations in 

a single spreadsheet tab (or table in Word). 

It should also summarize all other benefits 

that are difficult to quantify, and the 

applicant would also present this at the 

beginning of the BCA. The following 

provides a simplified example for expository 

purposes of discounted benefits from a road 

project providing travel time savings to local 

travelers only over the course of five years. 

In practice, applicants must estimate both 

benefits and costs for each year after the 

project’s start date and for a period of time 

of at least 20 years in the future (or the 

project’s useful life if it is shorter). If the 

project will continue to have benefits beyond 

the end of the analysis period, applicants can 

include a residual value of the project at the 

end of the analysis period, and treat that as 


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an additional benefit, discounted from the 

end of the analysis period. 

The following sections will help guide 

applicants through the matrix. This is useful 

both to fill out the matrix (and in the process 

to adequately scope and outline the analysis) 

and to actually carry out the analysis. 

Baselines 

Applicants should measure costs and 

benefits of a proposed project against a 

baseline (also called a ‘‘base case’’ or a ‘‘no 

build’’ case). The baseline should be an 

assessment of the way the world would look 

if the project did not receive the requested 

TIGER Discretionary Grant funding. 

Sometimes, it is reasonable to forecast that 

that baseline world resembles the present 

state. However, it is important to factor in 

any projected changes (e.g., baseline 

economic growth, increased traffic volumes, 

or completion of already planned and funded 

projects) that would occur even in the 

absence of the requested project. 

Baseline assumptions need to incorporate 

the transportation options with the highest 

net benefits that would be available in the 

absence of the project. Baselines should 

incorporate accurate descriptions of current 

traffic/shipping patterns. It is also important 

that the applicant assume the continuation of 

reasonable and sound management practices 

in establishing a baseline. Assuming a 

baseline scenario in which the owner of the 

facility does no maintenance on the facility 

and ignores traffic problems and 

maintenance is not realistic and will lead to 

the overstatement of project benefits and will 

affect the rating of the BCA. 

Applicants must demonstrate that the 

proposed project has independent utility. 

Sub-components of a larger project may have 

little or no transportation value in the 

absence of the other components. For 

example, a ramp to an undeveloped site does 

not have much utility if the site does not get 

developed. The correct baseline is then the 

current level of traffic and not the projected 

traffic if the site is developed. 

Baselines also need to be realistic in the 

transportation assumptions that they make. If 

a project would construct a short freight rail 

spur from a railroad mainline to a particular 

facility, it is unrealistic to assume that, in the 

absence of the project, individuals would 

ship cargo by truck for thousands of miles, 

whereas they would ship the same cargo by 

rail with the project. A realistic description 

of current traffic would have current cargo 

traffic going by rail for most of the distance, 

and then by truck for the relatively short 

distance over which rail transportation is not 

available. 

The applicant must make clear exactly 

what portions of the project form the basis of 

the estimates of benefits and costs. It is 

incorrect to claim benefits for the entire 

project but only count as costs the costs of 

the portion of the project funded by the 

TIGER Discretionary Grant. Thus, it would be 

incorrect to attribute all the benefits from a 

new port facility to a TIGER Discretionary 

Grant when the costs that are counted only 

cover the portion of the project funded by the 

TIGER Discretionary Grant, for example, 

paving a loading area. 

There are cases where a grant may 

accelerate completion of the project that an 

applicant already was going to build. The 

benefits and costs in this case should thus be 

limited to the marginal benefits (and 

marginal costs) of completing the project in 

a shorter period of time and including the 

cost of expending resources on the project 

sooner than otherwise planned (i.e., a ‘‘now 

versus later’’ comparison). 

Alternatives 

An applicant should present and consider 

reasonable alternatives in the analysis. 

Applicants should evaluate smaller-scale and 

more focused projects for comparison 

purposes. For example, if an applicant is 

requesting funds to replace a pier, it should 

also analyze the alternative of rehabilitating 

the current pier. Similarly, if an applicant 

seeks funds to establish a relatively large 

streetcar project, it should also evaluate a 

more focused project serving only the more 

densely populated corridors of an area. A 

careful evaluation of the baseline will yield 

several alternative actions. The analysis 

should demonstrate that the proposed project 

is the most cost-effective option of all the 

alternatives considered. 

Affected Population & Types of Impacts 

Applicants need to carefully identify the 

different impacts a project will have. For 

example, the rationale for many highway 

projects is to relieve peak-hour congestion 

which in turn reduces travel times and 

vehicle emissions. Other highway projects 

can improve road safety and in turn reduce 

accidents and corresponding property 

damage, injuries, and fatalities. It is 

important that applicants then match the 

types of impacts to the corresponding 

affected population (group and number of 

affected entities). For example, for a 

passenger project applicants should measure 

the number of passengers and for a freight 

project the amount of freight affected. 

Applicants should measure affected 

passenger and freight traffic in passengermiles and freight ton-miles (and possibly 

value of freight). If, as is often the case (e.g., 

projected growth in highway traffic), the 

affected population is not the same for all 

years, then the applicant needs to break out 

affected population annually. Measures of 

freight traffic might include growing levels of 

port calls. In some cases, the relevant 

population is the volume of traffic that the 

project diverts from one mode to another. 

Applicants should be realistic as to how the 

project affects these populations. 

Benefits—Long Term Outcomes 

Each application must include in its 

analysis estimates of the project’s expected 

benefits with respect to each of the five longterm outcomes that DOT specified in Section 

II(A) (Selection Criteria). We recognize that it 

may in some cases be unclear in which of 

these categories of outcomes an applicant 

should list a benefit. In these cases, it is less 

important in which category an applicant 

lists a benefit than to make sure that they list 

and measure it (but only once). The following 

table maps some of the types of benefits to 

a long-term outcome. These are some of the 

primary benefit categories, but this is not an 

exhaustive list. We describe these categories 

later. 


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Types of Societal Benefits 

Travel time savings can result from 

transportation improvements whose purpose 

is to expand capacity or improve state of 

good repair. Where this is the case, 

applicants should clearly demonstrate the 

derivation of the travel time savings to the 

affected population. If travel time savings 

vary over time, the applicant must clearly 

show savings by year. The applicant must 

also be careful to estimate savings solely from 

the project funded by the requested grant, 

and not from other related projects not 

funded by the requested grant. Once the 

applicant generates its estimate of hours 

saved, it should apply the Department’s 

guidance on the value of time to those 

estimates (http://ostpxweb.dot.gov/policy/ 

reports.htm) to monetize them for both 

business and non-business travelers. 

Operating cost savings frequently occur 

from both freight-related and passengerrelated projects. Freight-related projects that 

improve roads, rails, and ports frequently 

generate savings to carriers (e.g., fuel savings 

and other operating cost savings) that they 

may pass on in whole or in part to shippers 

by way of lower freight rates. Shippers may, 

in turn, pass on, in whole or in part, these 

savings to consumers. Passenger-related 

projects can also reduce operating costs for 

passengers by providing lower-cost 

alternatives to the use of private vehicles or 

by reducing the operating costs of those 

vehicles. If applicants are projecting these 

savings as benefits, they need to carefully 

demonstrate how the proposed project would 

generate such benefits. However, applicants 

must be careful to count the value of the fuel 

and other operating cost savings (however 

allocated among carriers, shippers, and 

consumers) only once in the benefit-cost 

analysis; it cannot be re-counted in full each 

time it transfers from one group to the other 

as this would entail double-counting of the 

same benefit. 

Transportation can generate environmental 

costs in the form of emissions of ‘‘criteria 

pollutants’’ (e.g., SOx, NOx, and particulates) 

and from the emission of greenhouse gases, 

such as carbon dioxide (CO2). Increased 

traffic congestion results in increased levels 

of these emissions. Transportation projects 

that reduce congestion can reduce these 

emissions and produce Environmental 

Benefits given reduced idling and otherwise 

constant vehicle-miles travelled. Also, 

transportation projects that encourage 

transportation users to shift from morepolluting modes to less-polluting modes can 

similarly reduce emissions. Applicants 

claiming these types of benefits must clearly 

demonstrate and quantify how the project 

will reduce emissions. Once an applicant has 

adequately quantified levels of emission 

reductions, it should estimate the dollar 

value of these benefits. For sources of 

information on the social benefits of reducing 

criteria pollutant emissions, applicants 

should refer to the online BCA Resource Page 

(http://www.dot.gov/TIGER). 

Many infrastructure projects that improve 

the state of good repair of transportation 

infrastructure can reduce long-term 

maintenance and repair costs. These benefits 

are in addition to the benefits of reductions 

in travel time, shipping costs, and crashes 

which the applicant should account for 

separately. Applicants should include these 

maintenance and repair savings as benefits. 

Improving state of good repair may also 

reduce operating costs and congestion by 

reducing the amount of time that the 

infrastructure is out of service due to 

maintenance and repairs, or may prevent a 

facility (such as a bridge) from being removed 

from service entirely. The application should 

also consider differences in maintenance and 

repair costs when comparing different project 

alternatives. For example, an applicant can 

compare the maintenance costs that would be 

required after rehabilitating an existing pier 

with those that would be required after 

building a new one. As part of the data that 

go into estimating the benefits of improving 

the state of good repair, applicants should 

provide accepted measures for assessing an 

asset’s current condition. For example, 

applicants can use Present Serviceability 

Ratings (PSR) or the International Roughness 

Index to discuss pavement condition and 

bridge sufficiency ratings to discuss the 

condition of a bridge. As discussed in the 

section on costs, the Department expects 

applicants to consider the life-cycle costs of 

the project when making these comparisons. 


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Projects can also improve the Safety of 

transportation. A well-designed project can 

reduce fatalities and injuries as well as 

reduce other crash costs. The applicant 

should clearly demonstrate how the project 

will improve safety. For example, to claim a 

reduction in fatalities, an applicant must 

clearly demonstrate how the existence of the 

project would have prevented the types of 

fatalities that commonly occur in that area. 

Applicants should use crash causation 

factors or similar analyses of causes of 

crashes to show the extent to which the type 

of improvements proposed would actually 

reduce the likelihood of the kinds of crashes 

that actually had occurred. Alternatively, 

when only a few cases are involved, the 

applicant should provide a description of the 

incidents and demonstrate the linkage 

between the proposed project and crash 

reduction. In some cases, safety benefits may 

occur because of modal diversion from a less 

safe mode to a safer mode. When applicants 

claim this type of benefit, they should 

provide a clear analysis of why the forecasted 

modal diversion will take place. Once the 

applicant has established a reasonable count 

of the incidents that the project will likely 

prevent, it should apply the Department’s 

guidance on value of life and injuries (http:// 

ostpxweb.dot.gov/policy/reports.htm) to 

monetize them. This and other relevant 

information on Abbreviated Injury Scale 

(AIS) are available at the BCA Resource Page 

(http://www.dot.gov/TIGER). 

Applicants must carefully net out other 

effects before taking benefits from Property 

Value Increases (e.g. from a transit station). 

For example, if the property value goes up by 

the exact same value as the developer’s 

investment then this is not a benefit. Property 

value increases over and above the 

developer’s investment may potentially be a 

benefit from the project. The analysis should 

also consider to what extent an increase in 

land values induced by the project in one 

area causes a reduction in land values in 

some other area. Applicants must also net out 

any property value increases that result from 

time savings or other benefits that have 

already been counted. Applicants can only 

count the net increase in land value as a 

benefit. Simply asserting that there is a 

property tax increase net of time savings is 

inadequate. The Department expects any 

applicant claiming these types of benefits to 

provide a rigorous justification of the benefit. 

Applicants should note that any claimed 

societal benefit from a property value 

increase is only a one-time stock benefit. 

Applicants can not treat it as a stream of 

benefits accruing annually. To the extent 

possible, applicant should use survey 

methods to estimate the value of the estimate 

the value of the expected property value 

increase from transit or other transportation 

improvements. 

Transit and bicycle paths may provide 

greater accessibility to alternative 

transportation modes, but they will not 

actually enhance livability unless people use 

them, and the desire to use them will depend 

in part on where these modes go and on the 

amenities provided with them. One useful 

source of guidance on measuring benefits of 

bicycle facilities (particularly for 

understanding demand estimation) is the 

Transportation Research Board’s National 

Cooperative Highway Research Program 

Report 552, Guidelines for Analysis of 

Investments in Bicycle Facilities 

(Washington: TRB, 2006) 

(Available at http://onlinepubs.trb.org/ 

onlinepubs/nchrp/nchrp_rpt_552.pdf). 

Transit and bicycle paths can also induce 

land use changes that result in greater 

density of development and more mixed-use 

development, thus reducing the number of 

passenger-miles of transportation needed to 

access jobs, schools, shopping, and 

recreational opportunities. 

Other 

Transfers are not benefits. Analysis should 

distinguish between real benefits and transfer 

payments. Benefits reflect real resource usage 

and overall benefits to society, while 

transfers represent payments by one group to 

another and do not represent a net increase 

in societal benefits. In the case of job 

creation, for example, every job represents 

both a cost to the employer (paying a wage) 

and a benefit to the employee (receiving a 

wage), so it is a transfer payment, rather than 

a net benefit. While wages are a transfer 

payment, increases in the productivity of the 

labor force, measured by increases in how 

much workers produce per hour, can be 

included as a benefit of the project, but these 

benefits must be carefully measured and 

justified to be included. With respect to 

economic development, providing estimates 

of capital investments or property tax 

revenues are not legitimate benefits in a 

benefit-cost analysis. For example, while the 

tax is a benefit to the tax assessor it is a cost 

to the taxpayer. These transfers are 

commonly included in ‘‘economic impact 

analyses;’’ an economic impact analysis is 

not acceptable as a substitute for a benefitcost analysis. Other examples of transfers 

include port/rail projects whose purpose is to 

take away business from competitors. 

However, the transportation cost savings (if 

any) and the like from shifting traffic to a 

more convenient location would be a benefit. 

Applicants should not include employment 

or output multipliers that purport to measure 

secondary effects as societal benefits because 

these secondary effects are generally the 

same (per dollar spent) regardless of what 

kind of project is funded. 

As noted above, the estimate of Costs must 

pertain to the same project as the estimate of 

benefits. If the TIGER Discretionary Grant is 

to pay for only part of the project, but the 

project is indivisible (i.e., no one part of the 

project would have independent utility), then 

the applicant should compare the benefits of 

the whole project to the costs of the whole 

project, including costs paid for by State, 

local, and private partners other than the 

Federal government. In general, applicants 

should use a life-cycle cost analysis approach 

in estimating the costs of the project. The 

Department expects applicants to include 

operating, maintenance, and other life-cycle 

costs of the project, along with capital costs. 

In addition to construction costs, other direct 

costs may include design and land 

acquisition. If the time period considered in 

the analysis is long enough to require the 

rehabilitation of the facility during the period 

of analysis, then the costs of that 

rehabilitation should be included. Applicants 

should consider external costs, such as noise, 

increased congestion, and environmental 

pollutants resulting from the use of the 

facility or related changes in usage on other 

facilities in the same network in the analysis. 

Additionally, applicants should include, to 

the extent possible, costs to users during 

construction, such as delays and increased 

vehicle operating costs associated with work 

zones or detours. The applicant should 

correctly discount annual costs to arrive at a 

present value of the project’s cost. 

Applicants should discount future benefits 

and costs to present values using a real 

discount rate (i.e., a discount rate that reflects 

the opportunity cost of money net of the rate 

of inflation) of 7 percent, following guidance 

provided by OMB in Circulars A–4 and A– 

94 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/ 

circulars_default/). Applicants may also 

provide an alternative analysis using a real 

discount rate of 3 percent. They should use 

the latter approach when the alternative use 

of funds currently dedicated to the project 

would be for other public expenditures, 

rather than private investment. In presenting 

these year-by-year streams, applicants should 

measure them in constant (or ‘‘real’’) dollars 

prior to discounting. Applicants should not 

add in the effects of inflation to the estimates 

of future benefits and costs prior to 

discounting. 

Benefit-cost analyses of transportation 

projects almost always depend on forecasts 

of projected levels of usage (road traffic, port 

calls, etc.). When an applicant is using such 

forecasts to generate benefit estimates, it 

must assess the reliability of these forecasts. 

If the applicant is using outside forecasts, it 

must provide a citation and an appropriate 

page number for the forecasts. Applicants 

should incorporate indirect effects into their 

forecasts where possible (e.g., induced 

demand). Applicants should also take great 

care to match forecasts of usage levels to the 

corresponding year. For example, using 

projected traffic levels for 2030 to generate 


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benefits for all the earlier years is incorrect. 

For more information on forecasting, 

applicants can refer to the forecasting section 

of FHWA’s Economic Analysis Primer 

(http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/ 

asstmgmt/primer06.cfm). While produced for 

analysis of highway projects, the primer is a 

good source of information on issues related 

to all transportation forecasting. 

Applicants should make every effort to 

make the results of their analyses as 

transparent and reproducible as possible. A 

Department reviewer reading the analysis 

should be able to understand the basic 

elements of the analysis and the way in 

which the applicant derived the estimates. It 

is inadequate for the applicant only to 

provide links to large documents or 

spreadsheets as sources. The Department 

expects applicants to clearly cite all outside 

data sources with the corresponding page 

number (or cell number, for a spreadsheet). 

For more detailed documentation, applicants 

must include a thorough verbal description 

of how they did the calculation. This should 

include references to tabs and cells in the 

spreadsheet. This verbal description should 

include specific sources for all the numbers 

in the spreadsheet (i.e. those that the 

spreadsheet itself does not calculate). If an 

applicant uses a ‘‘pre-packaged’’ economic 

model to calculate net benefits, the applicant 

should provide annual benefits and costs by 

benefit and cost type for the entire analysis 

period (including forecast year traffic 

volumes). In any case, applicants must 

provide a detailed explanation of the 

assumptions used to run the model (e.g., 

peak traffic hours and traffic volume during 

peak hours, mix of traffic by cars, buses, and 

trucks, etc.). The applicant must provide 

enough information so that a Department 

reviewer can follow the general logic of the 

estimates (and, in the case of spreadsheet 

models, reproduce them). 

Appendix B: Additional Information on 

Applying Through Grants.gov 

Applications (Stage 2) for TIGER 

Discretionary Grants must be submitted 

through Grants.gov. To apply for funding 

through Grants.gov, applicants must be 

properly registered. Complete instructions on 

how to register and apply can be found at 

www.grants.gov. If interested parties 

experience difficulties at any point during 

registration or application process, please 

call the Grants.gov Customer Support Hotline 

at 1 (800) 518–4726, Monday–Friday from 7 

a.m. to 9 p.m. EST. 

Registering with Grants.gov is a one-time 

process; however, processing delays may 

occur and it can take up to several weeks for 

first-time registrants to receive confirmation 

and a user password. It is highly 

recommended that applicants start the 

registration process as early as possible to 

prevent delays that may preclude submitting 

an application by the deadlines specified. 

Applications will not be accepted after the 

relevant due date; delayed registration is not 

an acceptable reason for extensions. In order 

to apply for TIGER Discretionary Grant 

funding under this announcement and to 

apply for funding through Grants.gov, all 

applicants are required to complete the 

following: 

1. Acquire a DUNS Number. A DUNS 

number is required for Grants.gov 

registration. The Office of Management and 

Budget requires that all businesses and 

nonprofit applicants for Federal funds 

include a DUNS (Data Universal Numbering 

System) number in their applications for a 

new award or renewal of an existing award. 

A DUNS number is a unique nine-digit 

sequence recognized as the universal 

standard for identifying and keeping track of 

entities receiving Federal funds. The 

identifier is used for tracking purposes and 

to validate address and point of contact 

information for Federal assistance applicants, 

recipients, and sub-recipients. The DUNS 

number will be used throughout the grant life 

cycle. Obtaining a DUNS number is a free, 

one-time activity. Obtain a DUNS number by 

calling 1-(866) 705–5711 or by applying 

online at http://fedgov.dnb.com/webform. 

2. Acquire or Renew Registration with the 

Central Contractor Registration (CCR) 

Database. All applicants for Federal financial 

assistance maintain current registrations in 

the Central Contractor Registration (CCR) 

database. An applicant must be registered in 

the CCR to successfully register in 

Grants.gov. The CCR database is the 

repository for standard information about 

Federal financial assistance applicants, 

recipients, and sub-recipients. Organizations 

that have previously submitted applications 

via Grants.gov are already registered with 

CCR, as it is a requirement for Grants.gov 

registration. Please note, however, that 

applicants must update or renew their CCR 

registration at least once per year to maintain 

an active status, so it is critical to check 

registration status well in advance of relevant 

application deadlines. Information about 

CCR registration procedures can be accessed 

at www.ccr.gov. 

3. Acquire an Authorized Organization 

Representative (AOR) and a Grants.gov 

Username and Password. Complete your 

AOR profile on Grants.gov and create your 

username and password. You will need to 

use your organization’s DUNS Number to 

complete this step. For more information 

about the registration process, go to 

www.grants.gov/applicants/ 

get_registered.jsp. 

4. Acquire Authorization for your AOR 

from the E-Business Point of Contact (E-Biz 

POC). The E-Biz POC at your organization 

must log in to Grants.gov to confirm you as 

an AOR. Please note that there can be more 

than one AOR for your organization. 

5. Search for the Funding Opportunity on 

Grants.gov. Please use the following 

identifying information when searching for 

the TIGER funding opportunity on 

Grants.gov. The Catalog of Federal Domestic 

Assistance (CFDA) number for this 

solicitation is 20.933, titled National 

Infrastructure Investments. 

6. Submit an Application Addressing All of 

the Requirements Outlined in this Funding 

Availability Announcement. Within 24–48 

hours after submitting your electronic 

application, you should receive an email 

validation message from Grants.gov. The 

validation message will tell you whether the 

application has been received and validated 

or rejected, with an explanation. You are 

urged to submit your application at least 72 

hours prior to the due date of the application 

to allow time to receive the validation 

message and to correct any problems that 

may have caused a rejection notification. 

Note: When uploading attachments please 

use generally accepted formats such as .pdf, 

.doc, and .xls. While you may imbed picture 

files such as .jpg, .gif, .bmp, in your files, 

please do not save and submit the attachment 

in these formats. Additionally, the following 

formats will not be accepted: .com, .bat, .exe, 

.vbs, .cfg, .dat, .db, .dbf, .dll, .ini, .log, .ora, 

.sys, and .zip. 

Experiencing Unforeseen Grants.gov 

Technical Issues 

If you experience unforeseen Grants.gov 

technical issues beyond your control that 

prevent you from submitting your 

application by the deadline of March 19, 

2012, at 5 p.m. EDT, you must contact 

TIGERGrants@dot.gov or Howard Hill at 

(202) 366–0301 within the 24 hours 

following the deadline and request approval 

to submit your application after the deadline 

has passed. At that time, DOT staff will 

require you to provide your DUNS number 

and your Grants.gov Help Desk tracking 

number(s). After DOT staff review all of the 

information submitted and contact the 

Grants.gov Help Desk to validate the 

technical issues you reported, DOT staff will 

contact you to either approve or deny your 

request to submit a late application through 

Grants.gov. If the technical issues you 

reported cannot be validated, your 

application will be rejected as untimely. 

To ensure a fair competition for limited 

discretionary funds, the following conditions 

are not valid reasons to permit late 

submissions: (1) Failure to complete the 

registration process before the deadline date; 

(2) failure to follow Grants.gov instructions 

on how to register and apply as posted on its 

Web site; (3) failure to follow all of the 

instructions in the funding availability 

notice; and (4) technical issues experienced 

with the applicant’s computer or information 

technology (IT) environment. 

Appendix C: Additional Information on 

Project Readiness Guidelines 

As applicants develop their applications, 

there are some guidelines on project 

readiness that they should consider. The 

TIGER Discretionary Grant funds are 

available for a limited period of time (DOT’s 

ability to obligate the funds expires after 

September 30, 2013), and DOT may be 

limited as to when they may obligate the 

TIGER Discretionary Grant funds to a project 

if it is not far enough along in the project 

development process. The application 

package should provide concrete evidence of 

project milestones, financial capacity and 

commitment in order to support project 

readiness. Each operating administration 

with the responsibility for obligating the 

TIGER Discretionary Grant funds has its own 

regulations, policies, and procedures that 

they may apply for projects that have been 

selected for TIGER Discretionary Grant funds. 

In some cases, an operating administration 

may obligate a portion of the overall amount 

of funds that an applicant has been selected 


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to receive so that such an applicant may use 

that portion of the TIGER Discretionary Grant 

funds for eligible pre-construction activities, 

delaying the balance of the obligation of 

funds until all pre-construction requirements 

have been completed. 

The guidelines below provide additional 

details about some of these pre-construction 

steps if a project element is for preconstruction activities, or requirements 

before the total award is obligated (including, 

but not limited to, planning requirements, 

environmental approvals, right-of-way 

acquisitions, and design completion) and 

suggests milestones each project should aim 

to achieve in order to obligate the full 

amount of awarded TIGER Discretionary 

Grant funds, in advance of the obligation 

deadline of September 30, 2013. Applicants 

should demonstrate that they can reasonably 

expect to complete all of these preconstruction steps if a project element is for 

pre-construction activities, or requirements 

before the total award is obligated no later 

than June 30, 2013, so that all the TIGER 

Discretionary Grant funds are obligated in 

advance of or by the September 30, 2013, 

statutory deadline, and that any unexpected 

delays will not put TIGER Discretionary 

Grant funds at risk of expiring before they 

can be fully obligated. DOT may reallocate 

unobligated TIGER Discretionary Grant funds 

towards projects that are ready to use TIGER 

Discretionary Grant funds if a project is not 

ready for DOT to obligate all TIGER 

Discretionary Grant funds before the 

September 30, 2013, statutory deadline. 

Applicants that are unfamiliar with, or have 

questions about, the requirements that a 

proposed project or projects may need to 

complete in order for the operating 

administration to obligate TIGER 

Discretionary Grant funds may contact 

TIGERGrants@dot.gov with questions. The 

below information is not an exhaustive list of 

the requirements that a project may need to 

comply with in order for TIGER 

Discretionary Grant funds to be obligated by 

the operating administration that is 

administering the TIGER Discretionary Grant. 

State and Local Planning: Project activities 

that are focused on refining scope and 

completing Federal environmental reviews 

are eligible capital expenses under the TIGER 

Discretionary Grants Program and are an 

essential part of project development. A 

project that receives TIGER Discretionary 

Grant funds may be required to be approved 

by the Metropolitan Planning Organization or 

State in the Long Range Plans and 

Transportation Improvement Program (TIP)/ 

Statewide Transportation Improvement 

Program (STIP). Applicants should take steps 

to ensure that the project will be included in 

the relevant plan if the project is required to 

be included in such planning documents 

before an operating administration may 

obligate funds to the project. 

If the project is not included in the relevant 

planning documents at the time the TIGER 

application is submitted, applicants should 

submit a certification from the appropriate 

planning agency that actions are underway at 

the time of application to include the project 

in the relevant planning document. If the 

obligation of TIGER Discretionary Grant 

funds for construction or other activities is 

contingent on the project being included in 

the relevant planning documents, applicants 

should demonstrate they can reasonably 

expect to have the project included in such 

planning documents by March 30, 2013. DOT 

is using the March 30 milestone since 

applicants should demonstrate in their 

project schedule that all additional, 

necessary pre-construction steps if a project 

element is for pre-construction activities, or 

requirements before the total award is 

obligated will be complete on or before June 

30, 2013, and planning must be complete 

before other pre-construction or other 

activities can be completed.. The applicant 

should provide a schedule demonstrating 

when the project will be added to the 

relevant planning documents. 

Environmental Approvals: Projects should 

have received all environmental approvals, 

including satisfaction of all Federal, State 

and local requirements and completion of the 

National Environmental Policy Act (‘‘NEPA’’) 

process at the time the application is 

submitted or should demonstrate, through 

their project schedule and narrative, that 

receipt of NEPA approval, and all additional, 

necessary pre-construction steps if a project 

element is for pre-construction activities, or 

other approvals can occur by June 30, 2013. 

If the obligation of TIGER Discretionary 

Grant funds for construction or other 

activities is contingent on completion of 

other approvals that can only take place after 

the environmental approvals process, the 

applicant should demonstrate, through their 

project schedule and narrative, that they can 

reasonably expect to obtain all environmental 

approvals by March 30, 2013, or other date 

sufficiently in advance of June 30, 2013. Like 

planning, the environmental approvals must 

be obtained prior to completing other preconstruction steps if a project element is for 

pre-construction activities, or other activities. 

To demonstrate that this suggested 

milestone is achievable, applicants should 

provide information about the anticipated 

class of action, the budget for completing 

NEPA, including hiring a consultant if 

necessary, and a schedule that demonstrates 

when NEPA will be complete. The schedule 

should show how the suggested milestones 

described in this section will be complied 

with, and include any anticipated 

coordination with Federal and State 

regulatory agencies for permits and 

approvals. The budget should demonstrate 

how costs to complete NEPA factor into the 

overall cost to complete the project. The 

budget and schedule for completing NEPA 

should be reasonable and be comparable to 

a budget and schedule of a typical project of 

the same type. The applicant should provide 

evidence of support based on input during 

the NEPA process from State and local 

elected officials as well as the public. 

Additionally, the applicant should provide 

environmental studies or other documents 

(preferably by way of a Web site link) that 

describe in detail known potential project 

impacts and possible mitigation for these 

impacts. The applicant should supply 

sufficient documentation for DOT to 

adequately review the project’s NEPA status. 

Right-of-Way and Design: If the obligation 

of TIGER Discretionary Grant funds for 

construction or other activities by an 

operating administration may be contingent 

on completion of right-of-way acquisition 

and final design approval, and/or additional 

approvals contingent on completion of rightof-way acquisition and design, applicants 

should demonstrate, through their project 

schedule, that they reasonably expect to have 

right-of-way and design completed, and 

completion of any other needed preconstruction steps if a project element is for 

pre-construction activities, or other approvals 

by June 30, 2013. Applicants should submit 

a reasonable schedule of when right-of-way 

(if applicable), design, and any other required 

approvals are expected to be obtained. 

Applicants may expect that DOT may 

obligate TIGER funds for right-of-way and 

design completion only after planning and 

environmental approvals are obtained. 

Completion of Obligation: Applicants 

should plan to have all necessary preconstruction or other approvals and activities 

completed by June 30, 2013. In some 

instances, DOT may not obligate for 

construction or other activities until all 

planning and environmental approvals are 

obtained and right-of-way and final design 

are complete. If a project is selected for a 

TIGER Discretionary Grant and the TIGER 

Discretionary Grant funding will be used to 

complete all of these activities, DOT may 

obligate the funding in phases, in accordance 

with the laws, regulations, and policies of the 

operating administration that is 

administering the grant. 

Issued on: January 25, 2012. 

Ray LaHood, 

Secretary. 

[FR Doc. 2012–1996 Filed 1–30–12; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4910–9X–P 

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Federal Highway Administration 

[FHWA Docket No. FHWA–2011–0122] 

Revision of Form FHWA–1273 

AGENCY: Federal Highway 

Administration (FHWA), DOT. 

ACTION: Notice; request for comments. 

SUMMARY: The FHWA is requesting 

comments on a proposed revision of 

form FHWA–1273—‘‘Required Contract 

Provisions Federal-Aid Construction 

Contracts.’’ This form includes certain 

contract provisions that are required on 

all Federal-aid construction projects. 

The revisions are necessary to provide 

consistency with the current policies of 

the FHWA and other Federal agencies. 

DATES: Comments must be received on 

or before March 1, 2012. 

ADDRESSES: Mail or hand deliver 

comments to the U.S. Department of 

Transportation, Dockets Management 

Facility, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE., 

Washington, DC 20590, or submit 

electronically at www.regulations.gov or 


wreier-aviles on DSK5TPTVN1PROD with NOTICES