The U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) announced yesterday $8.8 million in grants for 10 projects in eight States and the District of Columbia to encourage the use of tools that can improve safety on bridges and in work zones.
The grants, which can also be used for other innovative transportation technologies such as ultra-high-performance concrete to digital mapping programs, are provided by FHWA’s Accelerated Innovation Deployment (AID) Demonstration program and complement President Biden’s Investing in America agenda that is rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure and creating a manufacturing and innovation boom.
This installation of funding will cover projects in Arizona, the District of Columbia, Iowa, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Texas.
“Innovation is essential for the future of transportation infrastructure and these grants will help our State, local, and Tribal partners to improve safety, increase the resilience of our transportation infrastructure, and combat the climate crisis,” said FHWA Administrator Shailen Bhatt in a press release. “The grants, along with additional funding from Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will bring more innovations to America’s road, highway, and bridge projects.”
The incentive funding, distributed through a competitive discretionary grant process, allows Tribal Governments, State Departments of Transportation (DOTs), Federal land management agencies, and local governments to accelerate the implementation and adoption of innovation in highway transportation and demonstrate state-of-the-art technologies. Metropolitan planning organizations and local governments can also apply in partnership with State DOTs.
The program is housed within FHWA’s Technology and Innovation Deployment Program, supports the dissemination and deployment of proven transportation innovations through any phase of a highway transportation project including project planning and delivery and system operations.
The AID grants build on FHWA’s efforts to collaborate with State, local and Tribal governments, as well as Federal land management agencies, to accelerate the use of innovations and reduce project delivery time.
Since the AID program was launched in February 2014, FHWA has awarded more than $95.7 million for 127 grants to help agencies speed up their use of innovative practices, tools and technologies, including those supported under FHWA’s Every Day Counts (EDC) program.
EDC is a State-based program model that identifies and rapidly deploys proven yet underutilized innovations that will more quickly make the U.S. transportation system adaptable, sustainable, equitable, and safer for all.
A full list of grant recipients and projects can be found on the AID Demonstration Program website.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: The U.S Department of Transportation
