Cadmus, a leading provider of technical and strategic expertise to governments, energy utilities, and private sector companies worldwide, has been awarded up to $27 million to establish and administer the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Reconnecting Communities Institute (RCI).
The contract, managed by the Build America Bureau (Bureau), underscores Cadmus’ extensive experience in delivering place-based technical assistance and transportation solutions to federal, state, and local government clients.
Under this contract, the RCI will serve as the Bureau’s center for learning and capacity building, empowering communities to develop and execute reconnection projects. These projects aim to improve access to employment, education, healthcare, and economic opportunities, aligning with the goals of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, with a focus on the Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods (RCN) program. The RCI will offer training and technical assistance that will strengthen organizational and community capacity in transportation planning, identifying innovative strategies to reconnect communities to jobs and economic opportunities that have previously been cut off by transportation infrastructure.
“Cadmus is proud to build on our longstanding partnership with the U.S. Department of Transportation supporting community-centered infrastructure investments,” said President and CEO Ian Kline. “Through this contract, Cadmus brings its interdisciplinary capacity-building expertise to communities across the country that are seeking to address the harms of past infrastructure choices by implementing transportation reconnection projects.”
As the prime contractor, Cadmus has built a diverse team of 13 private and nonprofit partners with unique expertise across transportation planning and community engagement, tool creation and data analysis, planning, and engineering. This team includes Arup, Business Transformation Group, Center for Neighborhood Technology, CTL Engineering, Equitable Cities, Kauffman and Associates, Kittelson & Associates, Metro Analytics, Nelson\Nygaard, Planning Communities, Smart Growth America, TYLin, and Vision Planning and Consulting.
State, local, and tribal governments, metropolitan planning organizations, and nonprofits will be able to receive technical assistance from the RCI for the scoping, planning, and implementation of community reconnection projects. A key priority of the RCI is to support economically disadvantaged communities, including rural and tribal communities, that may otherwise lack the resources to plan and implement reconnection projects or lack awareness of the available federal resources.