Minnesota Department of Transportation

511 Travel Info

State Aid for Local Transportation

Congestion Relief

Congestion Relief

The Congestion Relief (CR) Grant Program provides up to $150 million is available for the FFY 2022 – FFY 2024 CR grant program. These funds will be awarded on a competitive basis, per statute, for surface transportation projects in the most congested metropolitan areas in the country1, that will reduce highway congestion, reduce economic and environmental costs associated with that congestion, including transportation emissions, and optimize existing highway capacity and usage of highway and transit systems, through:

  • Improving intermodal integration with highways, highway operations, and highway performance;
  • Reducing or shifting highway users to off- peak travel times or to nonhighway travel modes during peak travel times; and
  • Pricing of, or based on, as applicable, 1) parking; 2) use of roadways, including in designated geographic zones; or 3) congestion.

Eligible Applicants are

  • A state for the purpose of carrying out a project in an urbanized area with a population of more than 1,000,000 and
  • Metropolitan Planning Organization(MPO), city or municipality, for the purpose of carrying out a project in an urbanized area with population of more than 1,000,000

Minimum grant award is $10,000,000

  • Notice of funding Opportunity
  • Eligible Activities include projects or an integrated collection of projects, including planning, design, implementation, and construction activities, including:
    • deployment and operation of an integrated congestion management system;
    • deployment and operation of a system that implements or enforces high occupancy vehicle toll lanes, cordon pricing, parking pricing, or congestion pricing;
    • deployment and operation of mobility services, including establishing account-based financial systems, commuter buses, commuter vans, express operations, paratransit, and on-demand microtransit; and
    • incentive programs that encourage travelers to carpool, use nonhighway travel modes during peak period, or travel during nonpeak periods. [§ 11404; 23 U.S.C. 129(d)(4)]

Deadline for applications is April 22, 2024