Last month, we announced nearly $800 million in grants for eighteen projects as part of our new FASTLANE grant program. Demand for FASTLANE grant funding was through the roof – over 200 applications were submitted, totaling nearly $10 billion in funding requests. But in the last round, for every 10 projects we received, we could only pick one.

It’s clear that there’s demand to invest in strategic projects across the country. This is why we’re excited to hit the ground running on the next round of FASTLANE: eligible applicants, like states, tribes, and local governments, can apply again for FASTLANE grants from now through December 15, 2016.

Managed by USDOT’s Build America Bureau, FASTLANE funds innovative upgrades to our freight and highway infrastructure to increase efficiency and economic growth. These investments also follow the principles outlined in Beyond Traffic – our report outlining the long-term trends impacting America’s transportation network – as well as our draft National Freight Strategic Plan.

Both of these reports indicate that America’s freight traffic is expected to increase significantly in coming years – and our infrastructure will have to support it. That will take extensive commitment from public and private authorities at all levels, and it will also take active participation from citizens to build the infrastructure that helps their communities grow.

In this round, the Build America Bureau is authorized to commit up to $850 million for FASTLANE for FY2017. The Bureau’s dedicated experts in credit, financing, project delivery, and more have been brought together expressly to help our local partners develop and complete major infrastructure projects using the best available practices.

This multidisciplinary approach is essential to evaluating and implementing FASTLANE projects, which tend to involve several modes of transportation simultaneously, and often utilize innovative financing structures such as public-private partnerships. (In fact, we encourage the use of strategic partnerships, as long as the lead applicant is a public entity.)

For example, the Georgia Ports Authority was awarded one of our inaugural FASTLANE grants to help move more goods from the Port of Savannah via freight rail. As the nation’s fourth-busiest container port, this will alleviate congestion in the region, make it easier to transport freight more efficiently, and help goods to reach new markets.

On the other side of the country, the Idaho Department of Transportation received a FASTLANE grant to make crucial improvements to the U.S. 95 corridor, improving roadway congestion and safety for freight and passenger vehicles alike.

I look forward to seeing great applications for more projects like these. As we look to the future, we know we’ll need to make strategic transportation infrastructure choices, and the next FASTLANE grants will help us do that.

Learn more about FASTLANE grants and find the FY2017 Notice of Funding Opportunity at https://www.transportation.gov/buildamerica/FASTLANEgrants.

^{Photos courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers}