Skip to Content
Streetsblog Los Angeles home
Streetsblog Los Angeles home
Log In
Streetsblog USA

After Big Push From Mayors, TIGER in Line For Slight Funding Boost

There's good news out of the Senate committee responsible for doling out transportation funds.

The Indianapolis Cultural Trail was funded in part with a TIGER grant. Photo: Walk Indianapolis

Last week, the Senate Appropriations Committee okayed a small increase in TIGER funding, according to Stephen Lee Davis at Transportation for America. TIGER is the program that allows local governments to compete directly for transportation funds, circumventing state DOTs, and helps get a lot of walking, biking, and transit projects off the ground. It must be renewed every year, so its prospects are always in doubt.

If approved by the full Senate and House, the committee's proposal would set TIGER funding at $525 million, a $25 million increase over the previous year's budget.

Elected officials and civic leaders across the U.S. campaigned for funding TIGER. A letter signed by 25 mayors -- including the mayors of Tallahassee, Kansas City, and Anchorage, Alaska -- urge lawmakers to continue the program [PDF], noting that applications for TIGER grants have typically exceeded available funds by a factor of 10.

T4A's Davis said the bill could be brought to a floor vote sometime this week. The same bill would also authorize $2.3 billion for New Starts, the grant program that funds major transit expansion projects, and $1.4 billion for passenger rail. Those funding levels are in line with what was laid out in the most recent federal transportation law.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog Los Angeles

SGV Connect 138 – Reclaimers Resisting Eviction

Benito Flores, one of the Reclaimers, is resisting eviction to draw attention to inequities with how housing laws are being applied to people experiencing homelessness

This Week In Livable Streets

ICE protests, Metro NoHo-Pasadena BRT meetings, Metro Sepulveda Transit meetings, and more

July 14, 2025

Koreatown Community Rallies To Reclaim Our Streets From ICE Terror

"This is an attack on Los Angeles. This is an attack on California. On all of us."

July 11, 2025
See all posts