Pilot Program for Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Planning

Details:

9/3/2014. Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA): Notice of Funding Availability for PILOT PROGRAM FOR TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT (TOD) PLANNING. The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) announces the availability of $19.98 million in Pilot Program for TOD Planning funding to support comprehensive planning associated with new fixed guideway and core capacity improvement projects that will seek funding through FTA’s Fixed Guideway Capital Investment Grants (CIG) Program. Additional appropriations may result in additional funding for proposals submitted under this notice. FTA may award amounts ranging from $250,000 to $2,000,000. Synopses and full announcement are posted on Grants.gov site as opportunity FTA-2014-005-TPE. Proposals must be submitted electronically through the Grants.gov website by midnight Eastern Time on November 3, 2014.

Summary: 

The Pilot Program for TOD Planning helps support FTA’s mission of improving America’s communities through public transportation by providing funding to local communities to integrate land use and transportation planning with a transit capital investment that will seek funding through the CIG Program. MAP-21 establishes that any comprehensive planning funded through the program must examine ways to improve economic development and ridership, foster multimodal connectivity and accessibility, improve transit access for pedestrian and bicycle traffic, engage the private sector, identify infrastructure needs, and enable mixed-use development near transit stations. The statute also requires that the planning work be associated with a new fixed guideway or core capacity transit project as defined under the CIG Program.

Through this program, FTA intends to fund planning work that would likely not occur without Federal support and includes strategies to address the gentrification and displacement that can sometimes occur when transit capital projects are implemented. FTA is seeking comprehensive planning projects covering an entire transit capital project corridor, rather than proposals that involve planning for individual station areas or only a small section of the corridor. FTA is also prioritizing applications in corridors with significant challenges related to TOD planning, low levels of existing development, or where the cost of the planning work to overcome the challenges exceeds what might be readily available locally. To ensure that planning work results in concrete, specific deliverables and outcomes, FTA is requiring that transit project sponsors partner with entities with land use planning authority in the transit project corridor.

Eligible Applicants: 

Any comprehensive planning work proposed for funding under this program must be associated with a transit capital project that meets the definition of a New Starts, Core Capacity or fixed-guideway Small Starts project under the CIG Program (e.g., Section 5309(a) of title 49, United States Code), and is either:

1. In the Project Development or Engineering phase of the CIG Program process by the date the application to the Pilot Program for TOD Planning is submitted; or
2. Expected to enter the Project Development phase in the near future, as evidenced by the transit project sponsor having already initiated the environmental review activities under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) prior to the publication date of this NOFA.

Eligible proposers and eventual grant recipients under this program must be existing direct recipients of FTA grants as of the publication date of the NOFA. A proposer must either be the project sponsor of an eligible transit capital project as defined above or an entity with land use planning authority in an eligible transit capital project corridor. Evidence of a partnership between these two types of entity will be required unless the applicant has both responsibilities. Please refer to the NOFA for further information.

Only one application per transit capital project corridor may be submitted to FTA. Multiple applications submitted for a single transit capital project corridor indicate to FTA that partnerships are not in place and FTA will reject all of the applications.

Link and Instructions for attaching the supplemental form to the SF-424: 

All applicants must complete a supplemental form (PDF) and attach it to their submission in Grants.gov.

Webinar: 

FTA hosted a public webinar on the Pilot Program for Transit-Oriented Development Planning Notice of Funding Availability on October 9, 2014. The webinar provided an overview of the program, described eligible applicants and projects, and provided an opportunity for attendees to obtain answers to other questions. Following are links to a recording of and slides from the webinar:

• Webinar recording (Adobe Connect) - Transcript included[external link]
• Webinar presentation slides (PDF)

Dates: 

An applicant must submit a proposal electronically by midnight Eastern Time on November 3, 2014. Any agency intending to apply should initiate the process of registering on the Grants.gov site immediately to ensure completion of registration before the submission deadline.

For Further Information Contact: For information on this NOFA for PILOT PROGRAM FOR TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT (TOD) PLANNING, contact Benjamin Owen, Office of Planning and Environment, e-mail: Benjamin.Owen@dot.gov or phone at 202-366-5602.