“TIGER grants are targeted investments for our local communities that will increase safety, create jobs and modernize our country’s infrastructure,” said USDOT Secretary Elaine Chao said.

Congress had included that funding last May for “Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery” grants in its government-wide funding bill for 2017, and the USDOT took project applications through Oct. 16.

That appropriations measure specified that TIGER grants range from $5 million to $25 million, except for projects in rural areas where the minimum is $1 million, and that no state could receive more than $50 million in total. Project sponsors are required to obligate the TIGER funds by Sept. 30, 2020.

Along with its press release, the department released a brochure that details the projects aided by this round of TIGER funds.

Among the awards, the USDOT said it is providing the Arizona DOT with $25 million for a $134 million project. It will separate truck traffic from noncommercial traffic along State Route 189, in and around the busy Nogales border crossing with Mexico. 

The Nebraska DOT will apply $25 million in TIGER funds to a project costing more than $288 million, which will build a new freeway south of Lincoln and allow freight-hauling trucks to bypass that city.

The Rhode Island DOT will use a $20 million grant on a $44 million project that will replace four bridges, rehabilitate two more “and improve multiple traffic bottleneck conditions” along a 1.6-mile section of Route 37, a four-lane road that connects Cranston and Warwick.

Other TIGER grants went to DOTs in Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming.