By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters), The U.S. Transportation Department stated Friday that nearly $1Billion in infrastructure grants were being awarded as part of the Biden administration’s plan to significantly increase funding for the country’s roads and bridges.

The grants under the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) program are going to 90 projects in 47 states, the District of Columbia and Guam, to rebuild roads and add rail lines — but also create new green space, new trails, bike lanes and safer streets for pedestrians.

Pete Buttigieg, Transportation Secretary, stated that the department received “a ten to one ratio of requests for available dollars” in grant applications.

Seattle will receive $20 million to reconstruct a 1.1-mile road segment and will also add a bike lane. Washington County will be awarded $12.2 million to build a trail that runs 15 miles.

Charlotte, North Carolina will receive $15 million to construct a new multimodal transit center and New Orleans is getting $18.5 million to improve transit fare collection. Manchester, New Hampshire will receive $25 million to reconnect the city’s South Millyard district to surrounding neighborhoods and downtown.

Atlanta will receive a $900,000 planning grant to advance a project to “cap” the I-75/I-85 Downtown Connector highway, which would create 14 acres of green space and reconnect neighborhoods separated from downtown by the highway.

Garret Graves, a Republican representative said that the Biden administration is funding green spaces rather than eliminating congestion. This is supposed to serve as a transportation program. We sit in traffic and they get ‘green space.'”

The $1 trillion infrastructure bill, signed by President Joe Biden into law, will provide $660 billion for the Transportation Department over the next five years. This includes $210.5 billion that can be used to award competitive grants. 71% of that amount is allocated to new grants programs.

To promote infrastructure spending, department officials travel across the country. Buttigieg is in Phoenix to discuss the bill’s impact on transit and airport funding, while Deputy Secretary Polly Trottenberg is Pennsylvania and other department officials are in California.