Five hundred million dollars will be made available for transportation projects across the country under a seventh round of the highly successful Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) competitive grant program, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced on Thursday.

“The TIGER program has funded innovative projects, sparked new partnerships, created intermodal connections and enabled hard-to-fund projects that are changing the face of communities all across the country,” said Foxx. “We are excited to kick off this year’s competition.”

TIGER 2015 discretionary grants will fund capital investments in surface transportation infrastructure and will be awarded on a competitive basis to projects that will have a significant impact on the nation, a region or metropolitan area.

The TIGER 2015 grant program will continue to make transformative surface transportation investments by providing significant and measurable improvements over existing conditions. The grant program will focus on capital projects that generate economic development and improve access to reliable, safe and affordable transportation for communities, both urban and rural.

The FY 2015 Appropriations Act does not provide dedicated funding for the planning, preparation, or design of capital projects; however, these activities may be eligible to the extent that they are part of an overall construction project. A minimum of 20% of funds will fund projects in rural areas.

Since 2009, the TIGER grant program has provided a combined $4.1 billion to 342 projects in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Demand has been overwhelming, and during the previous six rounds, the U.S. Department of Transportation received more than 6,000 applications requesting more than $124 billion for transportation projects across the country.