Highway Planning and Construction — CFDA 20.205 obligations

What $195.40 billion on 96,838 awards records

Assistance listing 20.205 is titled HIGHWAY PLANNING AND CONSTRUCTION in the USAspending.gov files this site indexes. The obligation total on that code is $195,401,706,270.29. An obligation is a recorded federal commitment on an award. It is not an outlay. Treating $195,401,706,270.29 as cash already paid to contractors mixes two series. SpendingVault keeps the label as obligations.

96,838 awards sit under that dollar book—a high record count next to a large sum. Dividing $195,401,706,270.29 by 96,838 produces a mean near $2.02 million per award record. That quotient is derived from the two packet totals. It is not a typical project let and not a cost per lane-mile. Highway programs often write many project-level actions, which is why 96,838 records can coexist with $195,401,706,270.29 without implying that every action is the same size.

549 recipients across 56 states

CFDA 20.205 lists 549 recipients and 56 states against 96,838 awards. Recipient count is not unique construction workers. It is how many organizational recipients the assistance extract stores for this listing. A state department of transportation can appear on thousands of awards; 549 is not a headcount of contractors on every job. The 56-state span is a coded-jurisdiction count, not a map of every work zone.

Because award volume is high, extra modifications can lift the 96,838 tally without moving $195,401,706,270.29 much, while a few large commitments can do the reverse. The highway hub keeps dollars, awards, recipients, and states visible so one statistic is not inferred from another. Repeat actions and project phases all increment the award count.

Obligations versus highway outlays

USAspending.gov publishes obligations on assistance awards. The $195,401,706,270.29 figure for CFDA 20.205 can include multi-year construction commitments that will disburse later. FHWA fiscal reports, state letting lists, and a single fiscal year’s transportation appropriation are different publications. This page does not translate the obligation total into those series.

If a number you expected is missing, the usual cause is a different reporting concept. Start from the obligation definition, then open the 20.205 program page. Do not stretch 96,838 awards or 549 recipients to cover every federal dollar that touches a road.

What the 20.205 tables omit

The Highway Planning and Construction hub lists award-backed obligations from USAspending.gov. It is not a pavement-condition file, not a crash-rate table, and not a contractor performance score. Series that never appear as assistance awards will not show up in the $195,401,706,270.29. That omission is definitional rather than a gap in the 96,838 award rows.

Place-of-performance on 56 states is a coding field. A statewide grantee coded to one cell can dominate geography while projects sit in many counties. Read the program page before any state split.

How to cite CFDA 20.205

A complete citation is $195,401,706,270.29 in obligations for CFDA 20.205, covering 96,838 awards, 549 recipients, and 56 states, drawn from USAspending.gov assistance awards on SpendingVault. Name the series as obligations. If the question is record volume rather than dollars, lead with 96,838 awards and then the dollar total.

Start with the Highway Planning and Construction program page, then the all-programs index. Agency pages show awarding organizations; they do not replace this listing’s obligation total. Nothing here is a bid instruction or a project ranking.

A worked reading of the 20.205 extract

Start from the four packet facts: $195,401,706,270.29, 96,838 awards, 549 recipients, and 56 states under CFDA 20.205. The mean near $2.02 million is a quotient from a high award count, not a typical letting. If a later USAspending.gov file adds many small project actions, 96,838 can rise while dollars barely move. If a few giant commitments post, $195,401,706,270.29 can jump without a matching jump in 549 recipients.

Nothing in the extract splits highway planning from construction, or federal-aid from other FHWA accounts. Those cuts live in DOT publications. Treat CFDA 20.205 as an assistance-listing tag on USAspending.gov award files. Open the Highway Planning and Construction program page, then the all-programs index, for a same-series ranking. Cite 96,838 awards next to the dollars so volume is not inferred from the sum.

Questions

How much is obligated under Highway Planning and Construction?

USAspending.gov assistance awards indexed on SpendingVault show $195,401,706,270.29 in obligations for CFDA 20.205. That sum is an obligation total, not a Treasury outlay total and not a miles-constructed score. The same extract lists 96,838 awards, 549 recipients, and 56 states.

Why does CFDA 20.205 have 96,838 awards?

The indexed award count is 96,838. Highway planning and construction dollars often sit on many project-level assistance actions, which is why $195,401,706,270.29 coexists with a high record count. The 96,838 figure is a file statistic, not a count of work zones or contractors on every job. 549 organizational recipients are stored on those rows.

Does the highway total include money already paid to builders?

Not as a cash-paid sum. USAspending reports obligations—commitments to pay—rather than outlays. The $195,401,706,270.29 figure can include amounts that will disburse later. The 96,838-award count is a record tally, not a count of checks issued to state DOTs or contractors.

How many states appear on CFDA 20.205?

The extract codes 56 states for Highway Planning and Construction. That count is place-of-performance geography in USAspending.gov assistance files, not a map of every project. Those rows still sit under the $195,401,706,270.29 obligation total and the 549-recipient count. Cite CFDA 20.205 with the obligation total from USAspending.gov assistance awards, not an outlay series.