The Biden Administration announced its third round of funding for public entity grants focused on transportation, technology and innovation, along with funds for a climate and transportation research center earlier this week. 

The Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) Grants Program funded $148 million in U.S. Department of Transportation selected projects in its first two rounds. This included 93 projects in 39 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. 

“The SMART Grant program has helped communities, states, and tribes across America deploy new kinds of transportation technology solutions to improve safety and resilience,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, in a press release. “As the program enters its third year of funding, we’re excited for even more communities to get funding and support to develop technological solutions to their most pressing transportation challenges.”

The program was approved through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and funds $500 million in grants over five years. 

The funding is available for public sector entities, such as government bodies, for transportation projects that include one of the following: 

• • Coordinated automation
  • Connected vehicles
  • Sensors
  • Systems integration
  • Delivery/logistics
  • Innovative aviation
  • Smart grid
  • Traffic signals

USDOT will accept applications for Stage 1 Planning and Prototyping grants. Stage 1 will fund technology demonstrations and prototypes that solve real-world transportation problems and build data and technology capacity, the release says. Later this year, Stage 1 grants will be eligible to expand their projects through the first of several Stage 2 grant opportunities. 

“From Alaska to Maine to Puerto Rico, the SMART program has supported locally driven solutions across the country to make communities safer for all users and more connected and accessible. The popularity of this program demonstrates the demand for purpose-driven technology solutions, and we are excited to open the opportunity for another round of applications,” said Robert C. Hampshire, USDOT Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology and Chief Scientist, in the release. 

For more information, such as how to apply, visit here.

The Biden administration also announced $1.7 million in research funding for a Climate Change and Transportation Research Center at the University of California, Davis. The center will be supported by the Center for Emissions Reduction, Resiliency, and Climate Equity in Transportation which was recently established through an agreement with USDOT.  

“Tackling the climate crisis and making our infrastructure more resilient has never been more urgent,” said Buttigieg, in a press release. “The funding and the new research center we’re announcing today will help develop the solutions we need to reduce carbon pollution from transportation and improve the resiliency of our infrastructure—and help turn those findings into national policy.”

The center will support Biden’s current clean energy goals and accelerate decarbonization of the transportation sector. The release says it also will strengthen the resilience of the transportation infrastructure and address environmental inequities created by the transportation system. 

“This investment will spur innovation and support research-backed transportation decisions across the nation,” said Hampshire.

Partner institutions of the center include California State University Long Beach; Texas Southern University; University of California, Riverside; University of Southern California, and the University of Vermont.

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