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INVESTING IN AMERICA: Biden-Harris Administration Announces $785 Million to Advance Rural Transportation and Mobility Needs

Friday, January 10, 2025

Third round of Rural Surface Transportation Grant Program funds 24 projects to make rural communities safer, more accessible, and more connected  

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced $785 million in awards through the Rural Surface Transportation Grant Program (Rural) to invest in transportation projects across the country that will increase mobility, improve safety, and generate regional economic growth in rural communities – part of the Department’s larger announcement today of nearly $5 billion in awards to modernize America’s infrastructure thanks to President Biden’s Investing in America agenda. 

The Rural Program is a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris Administration's efforts to repair and improve rural transportation systems. President Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law allocated more than $44 billion to rural communities to repair and improve roads, bridges, airports, ports, and transportation systems. These awards will make rural transportation better, safer, and more dependable while improving the reliability freight movement and strengthening supply chains. 

“The Biden-Harris Administration is making a generational investment in our transportation systems—and ensuring that rural communities sometimes overlooked in the past are getting the funding they need to prioritize safe, accessible travel,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “The projects we’re funding with today's announcement will support rural communities across the nation as they make local and regional transportation safer and more reliable.” 

This year’s selected projects include:  

  • ALABAMA: $20,390,010 to the City of Cullman, Alabama, for the St. Bernard Bridge Replacement project: The project will replace and relocate the existing two-lane St. Bernard Bridge on US Hwy 278 / SR 69 which crosses Eight Mile Creek. US Hwy 278 will be widened from 4th Avenue to just past St. Bernard Drive to make the adjoining roadway and approach congruent with the new bridge as part of this project. 
  • COLORADO: $40,500,000 to Otero County, Colorado, for the US 50 SHIFT project: The project will install twelve individual passing lanes across five segments of the US 50 High Plains Freight Corridor between the urban center of Pueblo and the Kansas state line. The project will significantly reduce fatalities and serious injuries by addressing inadequate and unsafe conditions for drivers to pass slow moving vehicles. The project will also widen road shoulders for crash avoidance and emergency vehicle access. 
  • KANSAS: $26,698,000 to Hamilton and Edwards County, Kansas, for the Dairy Farms and Dirt Roads: Bringing Supply Chain Infrastructure to Southwest Kansas project: The project will replace dirt roads serving major dairy facilities in Southwest Kansas with paved, modern roads and stormwater infrastructure. This project includes 6.3 miles of road in Hamilton County and 8.5 miles of road in Edwards County. KDOT predicts traffic will double on these roads when a new dairy farm is fully operational, as the local roads are used for hauling milk to the cheese farm, hauling feed and commodities to the dairy farm, hauling manure from the dairy farm to farmland, hauling cattle to and from the dairy farm, and supporting more than 100 new, full-time employees. The project will also enhance safety for the increased truck traffic by addressing narrow shoulders and poor sight distances.  
  • SOUTH DAKOTA: $37,581,600 to the Oglala Sioux Tribe and Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota for the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation Pavement Resiliency and Restoration project: The project will restore, resurface, and improve approximately 103 miles of highway connecting Tribal communities within the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. It will also ensure year-round access for visitors of the Badlands National Park and improve routes included in the Tribally designated Crazy Horse Scenic Byway. The project will significantly reduce Overturn/Rollover and Runoff Road crashes through the installation of guardrails, widened shoulders, increased pavement friction, and other construction methods.  

More information and a full list of this year’s Rural grant recipients can be found HERE.  

This is the third competition round for the Rural Program, which invests a total of approximately $2 billion through 2026 through President Biden’s Infrastructure Law for projects that improve highways, bridges, and tunnels, address highway safety, increase access to agricultural, commercial, energy, or freight facilities, and bring flexible transit services to rural and Tribal areas. The demand for Rural funding outpaced available funds, with 142 applicants requesting more than $7.75 billion for the $785 million available this round. 

Applicants for the Rural Program benefited from a streamlined application process that reduced the burden for applicants by allowing them to submit one application for three different grant programs: Rural, the Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (INFRA), and the new National Infrastructure Project Assistance Program (Mega). For more information about the Rural Program and the combined Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant funding opportunity, click here. For additional resources for rural applicants, see the Rural EV Toolkit, Rural Grant Applicant Toolkit and the Rural Opportunities to Use Transportation for Economic Success (ROUTES) webpage. 

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