The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Federal Railroad Administration have announced who will receive grants under the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) program.
The program, which is awarding $248.5 million to 32 projects in 27 states, supports state and local railroad infrastructure projects in areas such as track safety, railroad crossing construction and repair and bridge rehabilitation.
The Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act, or FAST Act, authorizes the CRISI program. The program required rural projects to receive a minimum 25% of the available funding, and in this round they received nearly 50% of the funds, or up to $127.7 million. Fifteen of the projects were in economically distressed locations known as Opportunity Zones.
The full list of grant recipients is available here.
Freight rail recipients receiving more than $10 million in grant funding include:
- $18.8 million to the Delmarva Central Railroad in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia to refurbish three rail bridges, upgrade over 100 miles of track and improve nine railroad crossings.
- $27 million to the Kansas Department of Transportation to upgrade track and repair bridges and grade crossings on the portions of the South Kansas & Oklahoma Railroad in Kansas and Oklahoma.
- $16.9 million to the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority in Maine to construct a new intercity passenger rail platform and pedestrian bridge and extend an existing two-mile Pan Am Railway siding to become a six-mile siding adjacent to the new platform.
- $14.5 million to Ellis and Eastern Co. for its Minnesota-South Dakota Rail Improvement Project, which will upgrade rouglh 38 miles of Class III infrastructure between Brandon, South Dakota, and Worthington, Minnesota.
- $11.9 million to McKean County, Pennsylvania, to replace and rehabilitate four bridges on the Western New York and Pennsylvania line.
- $10.7 million to the Southern California Regional Rail Authority for the environmental analysis, engineering and construction of projects related to the area between the Glendale and Burbank Junction, which is shared by Metrolink, Amtrak and Union Pacific.
- $12.9 million to Cook County, Illinois for the CREATE Program’s improvements to the Pullman Junction Stage A. This would include expanding a section of the Norfolk Southern mainline near Pullman Junction to allow for double stacking.
- $21.4 million to the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis to replace the main span trusses of the 130-year-old Merchant’s Bridge, which crosses the Mississippi River between St. Louis, Missouri, and Venice, Illinois.
- $26.6 million to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to reconfigure an existing Canadian Pacific rail yard and double track CP’s mainline through the Muskego Yard instead of the Milwaukee Intermodal Station.