Mega Grants

Background
The Department of Transportation is combining three major discretionary grant programs and two fiscal years of funding into one Multimodal Projects Discretionary Grant (MPDG) opportunity to reduce the burden for state and local applicants and increase the pipeline of 'shovel-worthy' projects that are now possible because of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The National Infrastructure Project Assistance (Mega) program was created in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to fund major projects that are too large or complex for traditional funding programs. It is a highly competitive program.

Grant Details
The MPDG opportunity contains three grant programs: the National Infrastructure Project Assistance grants program (Mega), the Nationally Significant Multimodal Freight and Highway Projects grants program (INFRA), and the Rural Surface Transportation Grant program (Rural). The funding opportunities are awarded on a competitive basis for surface transportation infrastructure projects, including highway and bridge, intercity passenger rail, railway-highway grade crossing or separation, wildlife crossing, public transportation, marine highway, and freight projects, or groups of such projects. Applications will be evaluated on six outcome criteria: safety, state of good repair, economic impacts, freight movement, job creation, climate change resilience, environment, equity, multimodal options, quality of life, innovation areas: technology, project delivery, financing. Applicants can submit the same application to be considered for more than one grant program under the MPDG combined NOFO.

Eligibility Requirements
Eligible applicants include states, metropolitan planning organizations or regional transportation planning organizations, units of local government, political subdivisions of a state, special purpose districts or public authorities with a transportation function including a port authority, tribal governments or consortiums of tribal governments, federal land management agencies applying jointly with a state or group of states. Eligible project types vary by program but generally include highway or bridge projects on national multimodal freight network or national highway freight network; freight intermodal or freight rail projects providing public benefit; railway highway grade separation or elimination projects; intercity passenger rail projects; public transportation projects eligible under assistance under Chapter 53 of title 49; wildlife crossing projects; surface transportation projects within international border crossings; marine highway corridor projects connected to NHFN likely to reduce road mobile source emissions; publicly-owned highway or bridge projects providing access to agricultural, commercial, energy or intermodal facilities supporting rural area economy; integrated mobility management system development; transportation demand management system development.

Period of Performance
The period of performance for this grant opportunity is from FY 2025 through FY 2026.

Grant Value
It is anticipated that this opportunity will award approximately $5.1 billion for this round from FY 2025 and FY2026 funding. The Mega program will have $1.7 billion available in this round.