The US Department of Transportation is providing a USD 9 billion funding to support the Northeast Corridor modernisation which will improve reliability and quality of transport services and will also expand passenger rail services along the corridor.
These funds will be issued through the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail Grant Program (Partnership Programme), which grew to USD 36 billion over the next five years thanks to President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
The provided investment for Northeast Corridor modernisation will fund projects of national and regional significance, improving infrastructure, equipment, and facilities, including bridges and tunnels, rail stations, and track.
The NEC Project Inventory prioritisess key projects for funding, such as the repair and modernisation of major bridges and tunnels, all of which are over a century old, which include the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel in Maryland, the Walk Bridge in Connecticut, and the Hudson Tunnel in New Jersey, part of the Gateway Programme.
This investment will help improve reliability and result in fewer delays for the over 200 million annual trips taken by commuters and intercity passenger riders on the Northeast Corridor.
“Every day, hundreds of thousands of Americans rely on the Northeast Corridor, our country’s busiest rail route. Americans deserve to have the best rail system in the world, and the investments we are announcing today will serve to modernise the Northeast Corridor for generations of passengers,” the U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said.
The Northeast Corridor, stretching from Washington, D.C. to Boston, accounts for 20 percent of country’s GDP. The number of Americans utilising the corridor continues to grow, approaching pre-pandemic levels, with Amtrak ridership alone more than doubling in the last 12 months to 9.2 million passengers annually.
In December, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) also made nearly USD 2.3 billion available through the Partnership Programme for intercity and high-speed rail projects nationwide. Taken together, more than USD 11 billion in passenger rail funds have been made available in the first round of funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
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