Dive brief:
- The Federal Railroad Administration today announced $16.4 billion for 25 passenger rail projects along the Boston-New York-Washington, DC route known as the Northeast Corridor.
- The funding will make the nation’s “busiest passenger rail safer, faster and more reliable, meaning fewer delays and shorter journeys for the 800,000 passengers who rely on the Northeast Corridor every day,” said the secretary of US Transportation Pete Buttigieg in a statement.
- Designated projects include the construction and renovation program for the Hudson River Tunnel, which carries trains there from Manhattan, as well as the construction of a new tunnel in Baltimore to replace a 150-year-old tunnel that is a bottleneck for Amtrak intercity trains and Maryland commuters. trains
Diving knowledge:
The Northeast Corridor is “one of the world’s busiest passenger rail corridors and the busiest in the United States,” according to the FRA. But many of its tunnels and bridges are more than a century old, and critical safety and electrical power systems date from the 1930s or earlier.
To support the management of these and other projects outside the NEC, Amtrak is doubling the size of its capital delivery team and plans to triple its annual infrastructure investment by 2025. Today’s FRA investment “will help to ensure that essential rail corridors like the Northeast Corridor are modern, safe and comfortable, giving Americans access to world-class passenger service,” FRA Administrator Amit Bose said in a statement.
The funds were awarded under the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail Program, established by the 2021 Infrastructure Act.
But funding for Amtrak is being fought in Congress. While some House Republicans support Amtrak’s investments in the Northeast Corridor, others are looking to cut the railroad’s fiscal year 2024 appropriation by 64 percent from 2023 levels, Roll Call reports. The Senate has already passed a $2.5 billion appropriations bill for Amtrak, well above the House’s proposed level of $876 million.
Work on the Hudson Tunnel project officially began on Friday. “The start of construction in New York on the Hudson Tunnel project means something different from all previous milestones: that our vision of new, state-of-the-art infrastructure is no longer just a vision; it is is making it a reality,” Amtrak Board Chairman and Gateway Development Commission Vice Chairman Tony Coscia said in a statement.
Other projects receiving funding announced today include the replacement of the Susquehanna River Bridge in Maryland and the Connecticut River Bridge that serves passenger and freight trains. Both bridges are over 100 years old. Each state will provide funds for their respective projects.
