Not that kind of tiger. Photo by Wesley Hargrave of the UK Daily Mail.

Tuesday, September 15 was the deadline for submittal of applications to the TIGER discretionary grant program, that $1.5 billion pot of stimulus money that USDOT can award to whoever they want. As GGW has covered, the Metropolitan Washington Transportation Planning Board has been putting together a regional transit application. That application was submitted on schedule and will now compete with the thousands of others sent it from around the nation.

Here (pdf) is an overview of the TPB’s application. In the end it includes requests totaling $267 million, broken down into three packages, any of which could theoretically be funded individually:

• Package 1: $204 million for bus priority or BRT improvements to 16 corridors, most notably the K Street and Crystal City / Potomac Yards Transitways.
• Package 2: $13 million for a regional bike-sharing network with a total of 3,250 bikes (including approximately 1,000 being procured using other funding sources). The regional network would cover DC, Arlington, Alexandria, the City of Fairfax, and parts of Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties.
• Package 3: $47 million for improvements to three major transit stations, Rosslyn, Medical Center, and Takoma-Langley.

Nobody knows how USDOT will distribute money. Will they go for a small number of big splashy grants, or will they distribute money more evenly across the country with a large number of small grants? By submitting one application that can be split into smaller packages, TPB is giving USDOT the flexibility to consider its application in either event. And while all these projects are important, getting any of them funded would be a major unexpected win for the region.

Personally, I think the bike-sharing package will be particularly competitive. Although the smallest package, it hits the innovative/sexy criteria that many believe USDOT is looking for.

The deadline for USDOT to announce TIGER grant awards is February 17, 2010. They hope to announce sooner than that, but the large number of responses may hold them up until the deadline. Hold your breath, starting… now.