FY 2026 Pilot Program for Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Planning

FY 2026 Pilot Program for Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Planning

This page is a historical reference for the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) FY 2026 Pilot Program for Transit-Oriented Development Planning. FTA published the notice on May 11, 2026 and closed the application window on July 10, 2026. The official FTA page does not announce a later deadline or a new application cycle. There is therefore no open application window to use from this entry, and readers should not treat the closed deadline as a current invitation to apply.

The FY 2026 round offered competitive grants for comprehensive or site-specific planning associated with a new fixed-guideway capital project or a core-capacity improvement project. Its purpose was to improve coordination between transportation and land-use planning and the investments connected to an eligible transit project. It was a planning program, not a source of construction funding, land acquisition funding, station engineering, or general-purpose redevelopment money.

Historical status

The official FTA notice lists July 10, 2026 as the application deadline and identifies FTA-2026-003-TPE-TODP as the funding opportunity number. Complete proposals had to be submitted electronically through the Grants.gov APPLY function by 11:59 p.m. Eastern time. The FTA page now labels the opportunity closed. Proposals submitted after the deadline were only eligible for consideration under extraordinary circumstances outside the applicant’s control, so a new applicant should not rely on this record for a late submission.

No next-cycle announcement is identified on the official FTA opportunity page. A future round, if announced, may have different funding, dates, forms, eligibility wording, and review priorities. Applicants should check the FTA TOD Planning program page and Grants.gov for a new notice rather than copying the FY 2026 package.

Key details from the FY 2026 notice

FTA also states that a project may receive less than the amount requested. That matters when reading the size of the funding pool: $28,492,618 was the amount available under the notice, not a promise that each selected project would receive an equal share or its full request. The notice says applicants should explain the financial commitment to the proposed work, and it gives higher consideration to matching funds that are already committed.

For context, FTA reports that the FY 2024 round received 35 applications requesting $31.9 million. Eleven projects were funded, totaling $10.4 million, with awards ranging from $351,233 to $2,000,000. Those figures are prior-round results, not a forecast or an award promise for a future cycle.

What the program funded

The FY 2026 notice focused on planning studies that connected a transit investment with decisions about land use, housing, access, infrastructure, and development. A comprehensive study could operate at corridor, regional, and station-area scales. FTA describes comprehensive planning as an iterative process that may include data collection, needs assessment, performance criteria, plan development, alternatives analysis, public engagement, implementation planning, and subsequent monitoring.

A site-specific study was narrower. It could address a specific site or sites at one station on a corridor and could include existing-conditions analysis, market and feasibility work, concept planning, and other preliminary planning activities. Site-specific proposals at different stations could be submitted separately when their scopes were distinct. The application still had to show the connection to an eligible new fixed-guideway or core-capacity project and demonstrate how the work advanced the applicable metropolitan transportation plan.

The statutory and program goals required the planning work to address several linked outcomes:

1. Enhance economic development, ridership, and other goals established during transit project development and engineering.
2. Improve multimodal connectivity and accessibility.
3. Increase pedestrian and bicycle access to transit hubs.
4. Enable mixed-use development.
5. Identify infrastructure needs associated with the eligible project.
6. Include private-sector participation.

Examples of possible deliverables included a comprehensive TOD plan with corridor policies and station-area plans, a proposed implementation timeline, and financing strategies. Other examples included revised TOD-supportive zoning or resolutions, reports on tools such as land banking or value capture, policies for pedestrian and bicycle connectivity, joint-development strategies, and implementation frameworks. The notice also identifies housing-related policies, such as reducing unnecessary parking requirements or supporting attainable rental housing, as possible planning outputs.

These examples did not turn the program into a construction grant. FTA specifically excluded capital activities such as land acquisition, construction, demolition, site preparation, and utility relocation. It also excluded transit project development activities that would normally be reimbursable under an FTA capital grant, including station and facility design and engineering, environmental analyses needed for the transit capital project, and costs associated with specific joint-development projects. A proposal had to keep the requested work within planning.

Who could apply

The eligible applicant category was limited to State, territorial, Washington, D.C., and local governmental entities that were existing FTA direct or designated grant recipients when the notice was published. A private company acting alone was not the intended applicant type.

The applicant also had to occupy a qualifying role in relation to the transit project and study area. It could be the sponsor of a new fixed-guideway capital project, the sponsor of a core-capacity improvement project, an entity with land-use planning authority for the study area, or an entity with both responsibilities. Where the applicant did not hold both roles, it had to collaborate with the associated transit project sponsor and the relevant land-use planning authorities. FTA additionally required sufficient legal, financial, and technical capability.

The transit-project connection was central. A general station-area plan without a qualifying new fixed-guideway or core-capacity project did not fit this notice simply because it mentioned transit-oriented development. The applicant needed to explain the project corridor or station area, the status and needs of the associated transit investment, and how the proposed planning work would move implementation forward.

FTA placed an important limit on overlapping comprehensive proposals. Only one comprehensive planning application could be submitted per transit capital project corridor, and FTA would not award multiple comprehensive applications for the same corridor. Multiple applications could be considered when they were site-specific studies at different stations, or when separate applicants had different land-use authorities and the proposed study areas did not overlap. Applicants therefore needed to settle corridor boundaries and partner responsibilities before preparing the submission.

Application package and steps

The FY 2026 package consisted of the SF-424 Application for Federal Assistance, the current FY 2026 TOD supplemental form, and supporting attachments. The supplemental form and attachments had to be placed in the SF-424 Attachments section. The FTA page includes an apparent copied label referring to ferry programs, but the linked document and the Grants.gov opportunity are the TOD supplemental form; a future applicant should always use the form associated with the current TOD notice, not an old form or a form from another program.

The required preparation sequence was:

1. Confirm the entity, transit-project role, FTA-recipient status, study area, and partnership structure against the current notice.
2. Register in Grants.gov and maintain an active SAM registration with a valid UEI. FTA warned that registration can take several weeks and that existing registrants may still need to update their information.
3. Complete every required section of the SF-424 and the current TOD supplemental form. The supplemental form asked for the transit service area, fixed-guideway project and corridor, study area and stations, project title, executive summary, project type, review-criterion responses, and applicable additional considerations.
4. Prepare a study-area map showing the transit alignment and stations, major roads, major landmarks, and the geographic boundaries of the planning work.
5. Attach documentation of the partnership between the transit project sponsor and the corridor entity with land-use planning authority, unless the applicant held both roles.
6. Attach documentation of funding commitments and describe the local match. The maximum federal share was 80% of net project cost, and committed match was stronger than an uncommitted source or an in-kind contribution used as the sole match.
7. Address the evaluation criteria with a detailed work plan, schedule, deliverables, performance criteria, implementation process, partner roles, technical capacity, financial commitment, and likely barriers.
8. Submit electronically through Grants.gov APPLY before the stated deadline. Mail and fax were not accepted. FTA recommended submitting at least 72 hours early so a rejected or incomplete submission could be corrected and resubmitted.

FTA warned that it could not accept supplemental forms that were scanned, printed to PDF, converted with another text editor, or taken from a prior cycle. If Grants.gov or FTA rejected an incomplete application, the applicant had to fix it and resubmit before the deadline, including all original attachments and marking the resubmission on the updated supplemental form. Applications were time- and date-stamped by Grants.gov, and a confirmation email was expected within 48 hours after electronic submission.

How proposals were reviewed

FTA first reviewed responsiveness and eligibility. An ineligible applicant or ineligible project could be rejected before substantive scoring. For eligible submissions, the evaluation committee considered the planning benefits, demonstrated need, work plan and schedule, partnerships, technical capability, and funding commitments.

The strongest work plans connected tasks to the associated transit project, the metropolitan transportation plan, and a realistic implementation sequence. They identified substantial deliverables, anticipated integration into the region’s unified planning work program, performance measures, public and private stakeholders, and obstacles that could affect adoption. Applicants were encouraged to describe a reduced but viable scope in case the requested amount was not fully funded.

Additional considerations included safety; benefits for families, rural communities, transit-dependent people, and people with disabilities; and innovation. FTA’s examples included safer station access, universal design, community engagement, private-sector participation, joint development, value capture, and appropriate planning uses of artificial intelligence. These considerations supplemented the core review criteria; they did not remove the basic requirement for an eligible transit-project planning study.

The committee rated applications Highly Recommended, Recommended, or Not Recommended. The FTA Administrator then determined final selections and award amounts. If selected, a recipient would apply for a grant through TrAMS, where the appropriate FTA Regional Office would obligate the funds. Substantial reports, plans, and other key deliverables produced by the planning work would have to be submitted to FTA as completed, and funds remained available for obligation for up to three fiscal years, not including the fiscal year in which funds were allocated to projects.

What to do now

Because this FY 2026 cycle is closed and no later cycle is announced on the official FTA page, this entry should be used to understand the program’s structure and to prepare questions for a future notice. Do not submit against the closed deadline, assume the FY 2026 form remains current, or present the $28,492,618 pool as available today.

For a future opportunity, begin with the official FTA TOD Planning page and the active Grants.gov listing. Recheck the funding amount, applicant status, transit-project definitions, corridor-overlap rule, match requirements, supplemental form, deadline, and submission instructions. A future round may preserve the program’s planning purpose while changing any of those operational details.