U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has announced that 52 transportation projects in 37 states will receive a total of approximately $474 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery 2013 discretionary grant program, also known as TIGER.

Among these, 25 projects funded at $123.4 million will be designated for projects in rural areas of the country.

The TIGER program offers one of the only federal funding possibilities for large, multi-modal projects that often are not suitable for other federal funding sources. These federal funds leverage money from private sector partners, states, local governments, metropolitan planning organizations and transit agencies. The 2013 TIGER round alone supports $1.8 billion in overall project investments.

Under all five rounds combined, the TIGER program has provided more than $3.6 billion to 270 projects in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Demand for the program outweighed available funds, and during all five rounds, the Department of Transportation received more than 5,200 applications requesting more than $114.2 billion for transportation projects across the country.