On June 21, staff from the National Partnership attended a meeting of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Active Transportation Program to discuss the upcoming Cycle 4 grant process for the Active Transportation Program (ATP). We were encouraged to learn that the California Transportation Commission (CTC) and CalTrans are seriously considering a recommendation that we and other partners made to create separate grant categories for planning and non-infrastructure projects. CTC and CalTrans sought input from advocates and agencies about how those new categories of grants could be structured to invite more applicants. There was also much discussion about whether to have separate processes or applications for smaller, medium, and larger infrastructure projects, where the cut-offs would be for different size projects, and whether to have separate applications for each. This cycle will open in early 2018.

However, there is $200 million in new funding available for the ATP now due to the passage of SB1, and so there will be a 2017 ATP Augmentation cycle. In this augmentation cycle, the CTC will allow projects funded in 2017 to apply for consideration for an earlier funding window (meaning a project could be implemented sooner) and will also consider funding applications that competed in 2017 but were not selected for funding. The call for projects will be out within a few days, with a due date of August 1, 2017. If you applied in the 2017 cycle, scored well, but were not funded, please take a look and consider resubmitting your project for consideration.