Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP)

To be eligible to apply, applicants must be one of the following agencies in Colorado:

• Local governments: cities, towns, and counties
• Regional transportation authorities and transit agencies
• Natural resource or public land management agencies
• School districts, local education agencies, and public or nonprofit private schools
• Federally recognized tribal governments
• Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) representing areas with a population of 200,000 or under

Understand the time and effort to manage a grant-funded project:

• Learn about what grants management at CDOT looks like in practice by taking our overview training.
• For design and construction projects, refer to the CDOT Local Agency Manual to learn what complying with state and federal requirements entails. Get to know the process requirements of managing a CDOT-funded grant that includes engineering reviews found in the Local Agency Manual website.
• Be financially prepared for your portion of the costs. Recipients provide a minimum of 20% of the total project costs, unless qualifying for a match waiver, which eliminates the match requirement for select local governments. To see if you are eligible, please see the Guidance Book, Appendix A.

Your project must fall into at least one of the following transportation-related categories:

• Safe Routes to School
• Pedestrian and bicycle improvements
  
  • Pedestrian and bicycle facilities
  • Vulnerable road user safety assessments
  • Traffic calming
• Environmental and Wildlife Mitigation
  
  • Vegetation management
  • Archaeological activities
  • Stormwater management
  • Wildlife mitigation
• Historic & Scenic Activities
  
  • Outdoor advertising management
  • Historic preservation & rehabilitation of historic transportation facilities
  • Scenic turnouts and overlooks
• Boulevard Conversion
  
  • Converting a former interstate system or divided highways into low-speed boulevards

The amount of grant funds you can request is based on the type of work completed. There are two types of grant awards:

• Infrastructure (construction-related) grants: For projects that include design and construction of infrastructure will improve outcomes in the eligible project category.
  
  • Minimum request: $250,000 per project (for existing CDOT grant-funded infrastructure projects, there is no minimum request amount)
  • Maximum request: $2 million per project
• Non-infrastructure (programmatic) grants: For projects that are solely planning, data collection and/or SRTS programmatic activities.
  
  • Minimum request: $25,000 per project
  • Maximum request: $2 million per project

All applicants must submit a Letter of Interest (LOI), which will be released on October 30, 2026 and are due for submission by December 15, 2026. LOI submissions will be reviewed for regulatory and engineering compliance, including eligibility, project readiness, cost estimates and schedule reasonableness. Feedback will be provided to each LOI applicant for incorporation into the formal grant application.

Each distinct project requires its own LOI. Each agency may submit up to 2 projects/LOIs for this grant call.

To submit your LOI:

1. Download and fill out the LOI PDF form
2. Fill out the short digital form and upload the completed LOI pdf as an attachment

Following the Letter of Interest (LOI) step, applicants who are invited to apply can submit an application. Applications are due February 19, 2027.

A regionally based Scoring Review Committee composed of local CDOT experts and community transportation leaders conducts the competitive review and scoring of applications.