Stopping Threats On Pedestrian Competitive Grant Program (The Bollards Program)

The purpose of the STOP Competitive Grant Program is to assist State departments of transportation and local governments install bollard projects designed to prevent pedestrian injuries and acts of terrorism in areas used by large numbers of pedestrians.

Eligible applicants under the STOP Competitive Grant Program are State Departments of Transportation (State DOT) and local government entities.

Application Intake and Eligibility Review–To begin the review process, the STOP Competitive Grant Program Office initiates the Application Intake and Eligibility Review by providing an initial eligibility screening based on the statutory eligibility requirements outlined in Section B of the NOFO. Only eligible and complete applications are sent to the Technical Review Team (TRT). TRT will evaluate each application that passes the initial intake and eligibility review against the merit criteria under Section F of the NOFO. TRT will then complete the Project Readiness Assessment as described under Section F to determine which applications are rated as Highly Recommended, Recommended, or Not Recommended. TRT will then evaluate each Highly Recommended and Recommended application for its responsiveness to the statutory and DOT priority considerations. TRT will send to the FHWA Senior Review Team (SRT) information on all eligible applications received. The list will include information on the application, the rating for each merit criteria, the Project Readiness Assessment rating, and the evaluation of responsiveness to the statutory and DOT priority considerations. FHWA SRT will determine which projects advance to the DOT leadership for final selection. DOT leadership has the discretion to determine which applications best address the STOP Competitive Grant Program merit criteria, Project Readiness Assessment, and selection considerations and should be selected.

DOT will evaluate applications submitted in response to this notice using Location and Contextual Design, Risk, and Project Effectiveness as merit criteria. The ratings for each merit criteria will also be assigned a label of Highly Responsive, Responsive, or Non-Responsive. These Readiness Assessment will be used at the conclusion of the merit criteria evaluation to assign the application an overall recommended rating for award.