What are some strategies for securing funding for transportation projects?

The first step in securing funding for transportation projects is to first study the present and future needs. Develop alternatives to solve the present and future challenges and see how they fit into regional plan. Estimate your funding needs in today's dollars and project them based on implementation schedule then identify potential funding sources. Your funding needs depend on the type and scale of your project, the expected costs and benefits, the timeline and phases, and the O & M requirements. Your funding sources may include federal, state, local, or private grants, loans, bonds, taxes, fees, tolls, or partnerships. You should review each funding source, and match them with your project's goals and needs.

If transportation facilities and services are well-designed and implemented, they inflate the price of nearby land. Yet, these transportation-created land values are often overlooked as a source of transportation funding. Also, allowing infrastructure to provide windfalls for landowners fuels land speculation -- a parasitic activity that inflates land prices. High land prices then push development to cheaper, but more remote sites. The resulting urban sprawl diminishes transportation effectiveness and defeats sustainable development goals. Many transportation projects could be financially self-sustaining (at least to a greater degree than usual) if transportation-created land values were returned to the agencies that created them.

Have a proposal in place and it should include the following : -A budget -A mission statement -A problem statement -Objectives of the project -Assessment measures -Monitoring measures -Evaluation measures

They should put a tax on all commercial property within a half mile of metro station. they should have done it from day one and Metro wouldn’t be in this mess today. it was proposed but no political courage then.

Land value return, mentioned above, is an excellent funding strategy. But it's very difficult to implement after-the-fact. Therefore, land value return mechanisms need to be in place before particular facilities or services are developed. Such mechanisms could include special assessment districts (with the fee applied only to land value and not to building value) and a split-rate property tax (where the tax rate applied to privately-created building values is lower than the rate applied to publicly-created land values). Note: Land value return provides funding from benefiting landowners in proportion to the financial benefits that they receive from proximity to transportation facilities and services.

1. **Government Grants and Programs:** 2. **Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs):** 3. **Bond Financing:** 4. **Investment from Development ** 5. **Tax Increment Financing (TIF):** 6. **Crowdfunding and Community Support:** 7. **Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA):** 8. **Strategic Partnerships:** 9. **Transportation-Specific Grants:** 10. **Carbon Credits and Environmental Funding:** Tailor these strategies to your specific project and leverage a combination of funding sources for a well-rounded approach.

What are the benefits of the project to the people it will serve? Most are lookin to for some cost-benefit metric composed on a spreadsheet. But, does that really tell the story of the impact it could have to the community? Insert the human factor into the application this can influence the department/committee to consider funding.