State transportation agencies received $777 million today from the U.S. Department of Transportation to help fund 22 state-sponsored projects including several that will improve freight connections. State DOTs and affiliated agencies from 23 states were awarded 52 percent of the $1.5 billion made available by Congress through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for the TIGER grant program.

"We are particularly pleased to see nine TIGER grants awarded to states for freight and intermodal improvements," said American Association of State Highway and Transportation President Larry "Butch" Brown, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Transportation, whose emphasis areas this year include improving freight transportation. "These investments will unclog bottlenecks that delay freight shipments, reconstruct ports, improve rail lines - producing long-term economic benefits well beyond the initial construction work."

States also received grants for seven highway, three bridge, and three transit projects. A complete list of all projects and their descriptions can be found at http://www.dot.gov/documents/finaltigergrantinfo.pdf.

"The federal economic recovery TIGER funds awarded today to states will support a total project volume of $4 billion when state, local, private, and other matching funds are combined," said John Horsley, AASHTO executive director. "State DOTs have already started or completed work on 12,250 recovery projects worth $26.4 billion. On today's one-year anniversary of the recovery act's signing, states are once again ready to create thousands of new jobs in the short term during design and construction of these TIGER projects while building critical infrastructure that will benefit generations of Americans to come." An AASHTO report outlining the first year of state successes in spending the transportation portion of the recovery act is available at http://recovery.transportation.org.