WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Transportation is offering nearly $9 billion in grants to upgrade the Northeast Corridor through a Federal Railroad Administration program, the FRA announced on Thursday.
FRA Administrator Amit Bose said in a press release that the funding is “a major step towards reversing a half-century of underinvestment in vital rail infrastructure and will result in fewer delays for millions of riders and travelers.The expanded Partnership Program funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will ensure that the Northeast Corridor thrives as the region’s economic and transportation backbone, while making its services more reliable, available, and accessible to even more people.”
The Notice of Funding Opportunity to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, Dec. 27, will offer the funds through the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail Grant Program. It will fund infrastructure, equipment, and facilities, including bridge, tunnel, station, and track work. Applications for the funds will be due 90 days after publication.
Awards under the program will be guided by the NEC Project Inventory. That document, issued by the FRA in November, lists more than 68 corridor projects with a total cost of more than $105 billion that need to be addressed. The list includes 15 projects with a total cost of more than $40 billion labeled as “Major Backlog Projects,” only one of which, New Jersey’s Portal North Bridge, is fully funded.
Among those projects: replacement of Baltimore’s 149-year-old B&P tunnel, estimated to cost $6.03 billion, and 10 bridge replacement projects, seven of which are estimated to cost $1 billion or more.
Mitch Warren, executive director of the Northeast Corridor Commission, which guides efforts to improve the route, told the Washington Post that the funding represents “the first significant investment for the infrastructure in generations” and “a historic investment for the corridor.”
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