Surface Transportation Program

The Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act provides a suballocation of Surface Transportation Block Grant (STBG) funding to the CMAP urbanized area from funds apportioned to the State of Illinois for a broad range of eligible transportation projects. Due in part to the broad project eligibilities, historic practices, and differing subregional emphases on the individual priorities of ON TO 2050, the MPO Policy Committee has delegated STP programming authority to the regional Councils of Mayors and City of Chicago. 

The distribution of funding and programming procedures are outlined in an agreement between the Council of Mayors and City of Chicago that was updated and endorsed by the MPO Policy Committee and CMAP Board on October 11, 2017. This agreement calls for establishing a shared fund for accomplishing large regional projects, and making changes to the local council and City of Chicago distribution of funding and programming methodologies to place more emphasis on Performance-Based Programming decisions and accomplishment of the goals of ON TO 2050. The provisions of the agreement will be phased in during federal fiscal years 2018-2021. During the phase-in period, previously programmed project phases will continue to be implemented.

A new STP Project Selection Committee is also called for in the agreement. The committee met throughout 2018 to discuss establishing the Shared Fund and Active Program Management provisions called for in the agreement. On September 25, 2018, the committee approved the Shared Fund Application Booklet and STP Active Program Management Policies. To ensure that all communities within the region have reasonable access to federal funds without an undue burden caused by lack of resources for required local matching funds, on November 28, 2018, the committee approved a Policy for the use of TDCH for STP funded projects.

The shared fund was established for the purpose of supporting larger-scale regional projects that address regional performance measures and the goals of ON TO 2050. The programming authority distributed to the shared fund is derived from a set-aside of the region’s annual allotment of STP-L funds. Project selection is a region-wide competitive process overseen by the STP Project Selection Committee.

Project eligibility is focused on projects of significant cost and multijurisdictional projects in eight categories that address federal performance measures and priorities of ON TO 2050: road reconstructions, transit station rehabilitation or reconstructions, bridge rehabilitation or reconstructions, highway/rail grade crossing improvements, road expansions, bus speed improvements, corridor-level or small area safety improvements, and truck route improvements. Evaluation criteria are intended to emphasize the desire to bring projects to completion, address needs with cost-effective improvements, and implement planning factors that are an integral part of ON TO 2050, while also considering local preferences at the subregional level.

A call for projects to be implemented with the STP Shared Fund in federal fiscal years 2020-2024 was held from January 15 to March 15, 2019. Application summaries, evaluation results, and program recommendations will be posted throughout the summer on the call for projects page.

Each local Council of Mayors and the City of Chicago are working to incorporate performance-based programming and regional planning factors into their project selection methodologies. Throughout the summer of 2019, these methodologies will be available for public review and comment. Comments received by each individual council will be considered for inclusion in final methodologies that must be adopted by each council by September 30, 2019. As each public comment period opens, information for participating in the process will be posted here.

IDOT Letting Schedule
The current IDOT letting schedule includes the federal authorization date for projects. It is important to note these dates because once a project is authorized by USDOT, it is safe from rescissions.  

Federal Aid Designation
CMAP has prepared a workbook to assist municipalities and council of mayors in having a route redesignated to obtain federal aid eligibility status. This workbook and other federal-aid route information is available by clicking here.

Local agencies that wish to participate in the local STP must do so through their designated subregional council, according to the methodology of that council. A list of municipalities belonging to each council can be downloaded here. A matrix comparing eligible costs and match percentages by council (applicable to projects programmed prior to October 2017) is available here. The following links lead to the current STP project selection criteria (applicable to projects programmed prior to October 2017) for each of the subregional councils: