The National RTAP Community Rides Grant Program offers current recipients and subrecipients of the Federal Transit Administration (FTA)'s Formula Grants for Rural Areas (Section 5311) program the opportunity to apply for grant awards of up to $100,000 for projects that develop or strengthen transportation partnerships that improve social determinants of health in rural and tribal communities. There is no minimum grant award, and local match is not required. The project duration is fifteen (15) months.
For complete information about the Community Rides Grants, please see the Request for Proposals (RFP). The application deadline was May 10, 2021 at 11:59 PM EDT.
All applications submitted through the SurveyMonkey Apply online grant portal at nationalrtap.smapply.org by the deadline are now under review. The estimated date for project announcements was June 18, 2021, but has been pushed back to July 23, 2021, due to a change in the schedule for FTA's approval of the project selections.
Informational Webinars
National RTAP offered two webinars for interested applicants to answer questions and provide an overview of the RFP and the online grant application system. The webinars also featured speakers who shared examples of transportation partnerships and lessons learned. The webinar recordings and slides are listed below.
Webinar 1: Program Overview and Transportation Partnership Examples
March 23, 2021, 2:00-3:00 PM ET
Webinar Recording | PowerPoint
Webinar 2: Project Development, Performance Measures, and Application Portal Overview
April 15, 2021, 2:00-3:00 PM ET
Webinar Recording | PowerPoint
Questions and Updates
If you have questions, please refer to the Q&A Document (updated 5/6/21) or email grants@nationalrtap.org.
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The primary contact for this program is Liz Taylor, Assistant Director, grants@nationalrtap.org. If you would like to ask a question over the phone, please email and we can set up a time to talk.
Resources
This Community Rides Grants Helpful Resources document provides links to elearning courses, guidebooks, technical briefs, webinars, and other resources that may help interested applicants develop successful projects and write strong proposals.
The resources cover topics including Grant Writing, Transportation Partnerships/Coordination, Health Transportation, Inclusive Planning, and Performance Measures.