NJ Smart Choices

Building the movement for smart land use
and transportation planning in New Jersey.

NJ Funding Programs

Please send feedback, suggestions for improvements and corrections of information to Juliette Michaelson (jmichaelson@pps.org).

Search results for Pollution reduction

Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Program
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Note: New Jersey has three Metropolitan Planning Organizations. Click here to determine the appropriate one for your location.
Metropolitan Planning Organizations

Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) funds are focused primarily on transportation control measures (TCMs). TCMs are strategies whose primary purpose is to lessen the pollutants emitted by motor vehicles by decreasing travel demand (e.g., reducing motor vehicle trips, vehicle-miles traveled, and use of single occupant vehicles) and encouraging more efficient facility use (e.g., reducing vehicle idling and stop-and-start traffic in congested conditions, managing traffic incidents expeditiously).

In addition, CMAQ funds may be used for projects that reduce vehicle emissions directly through vehicle inspection and maintenance programs and fleet conversions to less polluting alternative-fuel vehicles. Intermodal freight facilities, strategies to reduce particulate emissions, and public education and other related outreach activities in support of TCMs are also eligible. The funds are intended primarily for new facilities, equipment, and services aimed at generating new sources of emission reductions. Operating funds that support these projects are generally restricted to a 3-year period. The CMAQ enabling legislation explicitly prohibits funding of construction projects that provide new capacity for single-occupant vehicle travel, such as the addition of general-purpose lanes to an existing highway or a new highway at a new location.

For more information - NJTPA Counties:

For more information - DVRPC Counties:

For more information - SJTPO Counties:

EPA Programs
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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

From time to time, the EPA offers funding opportunities for communities trying to implement smart growth principles.

For more information:

Local Finance Tools
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Municipal Governments
  • Special (Business) Improvement Districts: SIDs assess residents within set boundaries for additional services, such as park maintenance and public safety. They establish a partnership between property owners and businesses in downtown or commercial areas for the purpose of improving the business climate in a defined area. Impetus for the SID generally comes from business and property owners hoping to attract new customers by cleaning up sidewalks, improving parks, increasing lighting, etc. These business owners want better city services and are willing to pay for it -- within their neighborhood. In some places, they are willing to take on nongovernmental tasks, such as marketing, to supplement city services. There are currently an estimated 70 SIDs in the state of New Jersey. Refer to DCA's "SIDs: Loans & Grants" program for technical and financial assistance.
  • Tax Increment Financing: Tax increment financing can be used for a variety of purposes, including acquiring property to be resold at reduced prices and on-site improvements such as utilities, lights, repaving streets, and restoring neighborhood parks. TIF works like this: When a TIF plan is adopted, the assessed valuation of real property within a designated redevelopment area is frozen. Taxes are paid on the property at this base level while improvements to the area are made, new businesses are attracted, and property values rise. Typically, any increase in the assessed value of the property or additional sales tax revenues makes up the tax increment, which is then used to pay project costs or repay the bonds or other obligations that helped finance the project. By investing in a designated area, the TIF technique has aptly been described as a means of borrowing against the speculative gain that a project should bring.
  • Impact Fees: An impact fee is a one-time charge that private entrepreneurs, often developers, must pay to the local government in order to undertake their projects. In turn, the revenue from the impact fee finances public goods and services associated with the project, but which the developer would not provide voluntarily. Water and sewer lines, streets and bridges, and parks and recreational facilities are typical impact fee-funded projects.
  • User Fee Financing: Parking fees, dog tags, community college tuition, water bills, and park and recreation fees are just a few of the many different kinds of user fees collected by local governments. These funds can then be used to pay for transportation improvements, park maintenance and other municipal services.
  • Property Tax Financing: Perhaps because it is paid in a large lump sum check as opposed to small additions to each purchase, the property tax is the least popular of all state and local taxes. Yet they are an important source of revenue for local governments because they provide a steady source of revenue, less affected by downturns in the economy than either the sales or the income tax. In addition, property taxes are relatively easily administered at the local level, revenues can be accurately predicted, and the tax burden is fairly equitably distributed.

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Safe Routes to School
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NJ Department of Transportation

Safe Routes to School is a new federal-aid program. Its purposes are to: enable and encourage children, including those with disabilities, to walk and bicycle to school; make bicycling and walking to school a safer and more appealing transportation alternative, thereby encouraging a healthy and active lifestyle from an early age; and facilitate the planning, development, and implementation of projects and activities that improve safety and reduce traffic, fuel consumption and air pollution in the vicinity of schools. In New Jersey, the program is coordinated by the Division of Local Aid and Economic Development.

For more information:

Smart Growth Planning Grants for Municipalities
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Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions

Through the Smart Growth program, ANJEC (the Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions) will award 1-to-1 matching reimbursement grants of up to $20,000 to municipalities for local or regional plans, ordinances, studies or document reviews that protect natural resources and establish the land use patterns envisioned in the State Plan. Suitable projects include, but are not limited to, the following: natural resource inventories (NRI); open space plans and preservation programs; master plan conservation elements; brownfields or revitalization plans that include new open space; bicycle/pedestrian network plans; capacity studies including build-out analysis, septic capacity and groundwater supply; master plan and zoning ordinance revisions that incorporate smart growth concepts including clustering, downzoning, conservation design and transfer of development rights (TDR); critical areas protection ordinances for steep slopes, stream corridors, wellhead areas; planning tasks that help obtain Plan Endorsement from the State Planning Commission; planning that will achieve affordable housing within the municipality while protecting the environment; intermunicipal/regional plans to protect common resources (greenways, open space, etc.).

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Transportation, Community, and System Preservation (TCSP) Program
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Federal Highway Administration

The Transportation, Community, and System Preservation (TCSP) Program is a comprehensive initiative of research and grants to investigate the relationships between transportation, community, and system preservation plans and practices and identify provide sector-based initiatives to improve such relationships. States, metropolitan planning organizations, local governments, and tribal governments are eligible for discretionary grants to carry out eligible projects to integrate transportation, community, and system preservation plans and practices that:

  • Improve the efficiency of the transportation system of the United States;
  • Reduce environmental impacts of transportation;
  • Reduce the need for costly future public infrastructure investments;
  • Ensure efficient access to jobs, services, and centers of trade;
  • Examine community development patterns and identify strategies to encourage private sector development patterns and investments that support these goals.

For more information:

Transportation Improvement Program
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Note: New Jersey has three Metropolitan Planning Organizations. Click here to determine the appropriate one for your location.
Metropolitan Planning Organizations

Each of New Jersey's three MPOs is responsible for preparing a Transportation Improvement Program, a list of all transportation projects and programs of the New Jersey Department of Transportation, the New Jersey Transit Corporation, and individual counties and municipalities, to be funded in the next three fiscal years. Together, the three TIPs form the STIP (Statewide Transportation Improvement Program).

In order for a local transportation project to receive federal or state funding, it must be included in the TIP.

For more information - NJTPA Counties:

For more information - DVRPC Counties:

  • Visit DVRPC's TIP Webpage.
  • Contact Charles D. Dougherty, Associate Director for Transportation Planning, (215) 238-2863.

For more information - SJTPO Counties: