Assistance program
Recreational Trails Program
$614.5 Million committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Federal Highway Administration, Transportation, Department of
- Assistance
- Formula Grants;Formula Grants (Apportionments)
- CFDA number
- 20.219
- What it does
- The purpose of this program is to provide funds to the States to develop and maintain recreational trails and trail-related facilities for both nonmotorized and motorized recreational trail uses. The funds represent a portion of the motor fuel excise tax collected from nonhighway recreational fuel use.
- Who benefits
- The FHWA may enter into contracts with for-profit organizations or contracts, partnerships, or cooperative agreements with other government agencies, institutions of higher learning, or nonprofit organizations using its administrative funds. The State agency designated by the Governor. A State may opt out of the Recreational Trails Program if the Governor of the State notifies the Secretary not later than 30 days prior to apportionments being made for any fiscal year.
- Who applies
- The FHWA may enter into contracts with for-profit organizations or contracts, partnerships, or cooperative agreements with other government agencies, institutions of higher learning, or nonprofit organizations using its administrative funds. For funds available to the States: the Governor of each State must designate the State agency or agencies responsible for administering this program. The State must have a State recreational trail advisory committee that represents both motorized and nonmotorized recreational trail users, which shall meet not less than once per fiscal year. If the State Recreational Trail Advisory Committee does not meet in a fiscal year, or does not have required representation, the State becomes ineligible for an apportionment. The State agency may accept project proposals from private organizations, or from municipal, county, State, or Federal government entities, and other government entities. The projects must satisfy one or more of the permissible uses. States may provide subgrants to Federal, State, and local government entities and to private entities, at the discretion of the State.
- Authorized by
- Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act.
- Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments