The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration is now accepting applications for the first round of funding under the Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-Saving Transportation (PROTECT) Program. This new program was created under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to plan for and strengthen surface transportation to be more resilient to natural hazards. $848 million is available for this first funding round. Townships are eligible to apply directly to FHWA through August 18.  

The PROTECT program provides funding for the following types of projects:  

• Planning Grants for resilience planning, predesign, design, or the development of data tools to simulate transportation disruption scenarios; technical capacity building; or evacuation planning and preparation.   
• Resilience Improvement Grants to improve or to increase the resilience of surface transportation infrastructure from the impacts of changing conditions, such as sea level rise, flooding, wildfires, extreme weather events, and other natural disasters.   
• Community Resilience and Evacuation Route Grants that strengthen and protect essential evacuation routes; the acquisition of evacuation route or traffic incident management equipment or signage; or projects that will ensure access or service to critical destinations, including hospitals and other medical or emergency services facilities, major employers, critical manufacturing centers, ports and intermodal facilities, utilities, and federal facilities.  

Grant applications must be submitted online via grants.gov. For more information, including checklists, fact sheet, and webinars, visit FHWA’s PROTECT Program website.