Third Round of USDOT Reconnecting Communities Funding

This week, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the third round of the Department of Transportation's (USDOT) Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program (RCP).

The FY24 NOFO includes FY24-26 funding of over $600 million, available for both capital construction and community planning grants.

Last year, the Reconnecting Communities Pilot was merged with the Neighborhood Access and Equity (NAE) program. This merger combined two initiatives aimed at reconnecting communities that were previously cut off by transportation infrastructure decisions, with a total of $3.3 billion in funding supporting projects in 130 communities.

To date, 176 communities have received funding from the RCP and NAE programs.

"Through President Biden’s infrastructure law, we’re addressing infrastructure choices of the past and making sure that our transportation investments serve to connect, rather than divide, people and communities across the country," stated U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. "This funding will support projects that bring people closer to jobs, schools, housing, places of worship, and one another."

Projects that received funding earlier this year include:

• The Reconnecting Atlanta’s Southside Communities project in Georgia, which will construct a multi-use trail connecting schools, hospitals, job centers, MARTA rail stations, the BeltLine, and employment centers that were isolated by major interstate construction around Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

• The Reconnecting 4th Ave. North project in Alabama, which received a grant for a 15-block Complete Streets redesign of Birmingham’s Black Main Street. The redesign will convert the road from one-way to two-way and help reconnect downtown neighborhoods and businesses divided by the construction of Interstate 65 in the 1960s.

• The Interstate 5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project in Portland, Oregon, which will construct a highway cover to support new community space and future development, reconnecting Lower Albina to local streets over I-5.

• The I-81 Viaduct Project in Syracuse, New York, which will remove parts of I-81 to transform the surrounding neighborhood into a complete streets network, enhance connections to downtown Syracuse, improve traffic flow, increase safety for cyclists and pedestrians, and encourage additional investment in the neighborhood.

The RCP program is part of President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative, which aims to ensure that 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities that have been marginalized by under investment and overburdened by pollution.

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