USDOT Federal Discretionary Grant Assistance

Purpose of Project

As part of GDOT’s General Planning Support Services contract, Modern Mobility Partners (MMP) supported the Department in applying for Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (INFRA) and Rebuilding American Infrastructure Sustainably and Equitably (RAISE) (Formerly BUILD) grants from the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) to fund various projects. Such grants help agencies meet their communities’ transportation infrastructure needs and stretch state and local dollars further. To strengthen these efforts, MMP is also developing a grant strategy to aid the department in selecting competitive projects and better prepare for grant applications in future years. 

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Our Role on the Project

Grant Applications 

For each grant application, MMP managed the application schedule, coordinated with GDOT and relevant partners, and drafted the grant application narrative, which described project benefits towards meeting USDOT statutory criteria and communicate its significance to the local and regional community. 

MMP also supports these grant applications by developing robust Benefit-Cost Analyses (BCA) that quantify and monetize projects’ safety, vehicle and truck operations, and emissions benefits compared to the projects’ capital, operating, and maintenance costs over a 20-year life cycle to find its Benefit Cost Ratio and Net Present Value, thereby indicating to USDOT the cost-effectiveness and value of the projects. 

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Since 2020, MMP has assisted GDOT with applications for two INFRA, three RAISE/BUILD, and one PROTECT grant, which includes but is not limited to applications for the projects listed below. 

• 2020 INFRA | Historic Gateway Project, State Route 9, City of Roswell, Fulton County – Convert SR 9 reversible lanes into a divided four-lane highway with sidewalks and multiuse path. This project improves operations, reduces crashes, upgrades deficient bridges, and provides bicycle and pedestrian connectivity. 

• 2020 BUILD | I-85 at State Route 74 (SR 74), City of Fairburn, Fulton County– Reconfiguration of an existing diamond interchange into a partial cloverleaf with full bridge replacement. This project alleviates congestion, reduces crashes, and improves pedestrian and bicycle access. 

• 2023 RAISE, 2022 RAISE, 2022 INFRA | I-85 at SR 138 DDI, City of Union City, Fulton County – Redesign of existing diamond interchange into a diverging diamond interchange with bicycle and pedestrian facilities. This project reduces congestion, improves multimodal connectivity to major employers, and increases safety. 

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Grant Strategy 

The application window for many USDOT grants is four- to eight-weeks long, which is a limited amount of time for agencies to identify projects to submit for funding, identify and quantify benefits, write a narrative, secure letters of support, conduct a BCA, all while carrying out other ongoing agency duties. Further, project requirements and merit criteria are getting increasingly specific and stringent, requiring extensive data and documentation. MMP is utilizing its previous grant experience to develop a tool that better prepares GDOT for each USDOT grant application cycle. This tool, dubbed the Grant Strategy, includes an evaluation of hundreds of GDOT-sponsored projects based on project eligibility, competitive criteria, cost-effectiveness, and project readiness.  

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Problem Solvers

USDOT discretionary grants are highly competitive across the U.S., with only a fraction of submitted applications being funded. Therefore, it is critical that the grant applications provide the most accurate and compelling information available for the project. Our solutions to prepare projects for anticipated notices of funding opportunity (NOFO), especially given our close review of program requirements during each year’s application cycle, effectively enables us to efficiently prepare applications and associated BCAs within the application windows and while receiving high remarks from USDOT.