Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Transportation, via the Federal Railroad Administration, has announced $1.24 billion in grants for rail safety infrastructure projects, according to an Oct. 30 news release from the agency.
- The 91 grants will go to transportation agencies across 37 states via the FY 25-26 Railroad Crossing Elimination Grant Program, per the announcement.
- Money from the RCEGP grants, authorized under the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, will go toward removing unsafe highway-rail conflict points, closing at-grade crossings and upgrading railroad traffic signals, according to the DOT.
Dive Insight:
The rail grant news comes as builders continue to grapple with uncertainty in the infrastructure realm. Construction pros have long awaited an extension of federal surface transportation programs via legislative reauthorization.
Even so, infrastructure funding from the IIJA has proved to have a long tail. In September, the DOT released $481 million in grants via the Federal Aviation Administration to improve airport infrastructure in 36 states and two territories. One month later, the DOT awarded $426 million for critical infrastructure projects in a dozen states.
Some of these projects include, per the release:
- $72 million for the Port Authority of Kansas City to eliminate three existing at-grade crossings through a grade separation in Kansas City, Missouri.
- $46 million for the Texas DOT to support the construction of a grade-separated overpass carrying RM 2871 over the Union Pacific Railroad and Aledo Road in Fort Worth, Texas.
- $43 million to the City of Nampa, Idaho, to eliminate an at-grade crossing and construct a grade separation as part of the Robinson Road and Greenhurst Road Overpass Project.
- $31.7 million to the Georgia DOT to upgrade railroad preemption interconnection to traffic signals at approximately 31 high-risk railroad crossings across the state.
“The RCE grants announced today will provide communities nationwide with funding to make highway-rail grade crossings safer and reduce the occurrence of blocked crossings,” said David Fink, administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, in the news release.
The grants follow an investment of $2.3 billion via the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements Grant Program announced earlier in October to improve more than 2,000 miles of railroad tracks. The CRISI program was established in 2015 via the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act in 2015.
In addition to the current grants, the FRA also announced it would fund select passenger rail projects through a $5.3 billion investment package in August. Those projects are spread across 23 states.
