President Joe Biden visited New York to announce funding for a critical early phase of the Hudson Tunnel Project and Mega grants for other major infrastructure projects across the country.
The Mega grant program, created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, funds projects that are too large or complex for traditional funding programs. Eligible projects include highway, bridge, freight, port, passenger rail and public-transportation projects that are a part of one of the other project types.
The Mega program will invest a total of $5 billion through 2026 to help rebuild the United States’ infrastructure for the benefit of residents now and for generations to come.
Nearly $1.2 billion will be invested from the infrastructure law’s new National Infrastructure Project Assistance discretionary grant program (Mega) for nine projects across the country.
These infrastructure investments will create good-paying jobs – including union jobs and jobs that do not require a college degree. The projects will grow the economy, strengthen supply chains, improve mobility for residents and make our transportation systems safer for all users, according to the Administration.
The biggest infrastructure investment is the Hudson Tunnel Project. The overall Hudson Tunnel Project is a more than $16 billion investment that will improve resilience, reliability and redundancy for New Jersey Transit (NJ Transit) and Amtrak train service between New York and New Jersey.
The project will reduce commute times for NJ Transit riders, enhance Amtrak reliability on the Northeast Corridor (NEC), and support the northeast regional economy. Amtrak expects the Hudson Tunnel Project will result in 72,000 direct and indirect jobs during construction with union partnerships for job training.
The Hudson Tunnel Project includes a $292 million Mega grant to Amtrak for Hudson Yards Concrete Casing, Section 3. It will also rehabilitate the old North River Tunnel; build a new tunnel beneath the Palisades, the Hudson River, and the waterfront area in Manhattan; construct new surface alignment from Secaucus to the new tunnel portal in North Bergen; construct ventilation shafts and fan plants in New Jersey and New York; and make track modifications near Penn Station. When the project is done, the redundant capacity provided by a second tunnel will mean fewer delays and less risk for catastrophic disruption.
The project is part of the larger Gateway Program, which envisions expanding and rebuilding the rail line between Newark, New Jersey and New York City through a number of projects, including the new Portal North Bridge, which broke ground last year and is supported by $900 million in federal funding.
Other projects:
- $250 million for the Brent Spence Bridge connecting Kentucky and Ohio, part of a total investment of $1.6 Billion from the infrastructure law to build a new companion bridge and rehab an existing bridge along a major freight corridor on I-75. Earlier this month, the President and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) visited the Brent Spence Bridge to announce this funding.
- $150 million to the Louisiana Department of Transportation for the Calcasieu River Bridge Replacement, which will increase capacity on a critical stretch of Interstate 10 which is an important freight route.
- $117 million to the Metra Commuter Railroad in Illinois to make improvements on the Metra Union Pacific-North line on a two-mile corridor from the Addison to Fullerton rail bridges, replacing approximately 11 bridges, 4 miles of track structure, and more than 1.75 miles of retaining walls along Metra’s UP-N line.
- $110 to the North Carolina Department of Transportation to replace the Alligator River Bridge on U.S. Highway 64 with a modern high-rise fixed span bridge along the primary east-west route in northeastern North Carolina between I-95 and the Outer Banks.
- $85 million to the Oklahoma Department of Transportation for I-44 and US-75 improvements along a critical urban freight corridor near Tulsa, including vehicular, pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure improvements.
- $78 million to the City of Philadelphia to make improvements along approximately 12.3 miles of Roosevelt Boulevard, from North Broad Street to the Bucks County line including making traffic signal upgrades, constructing intersection and roadway reconfigurations, constructing median barriers and pedestrian refuge islands, making corridor access management improvements, constructing complete streets improvements for accessibility, pedestrian, and bicycle improvements, as well as installing new business access and transit lanes.
- $60 million to the Mississippi Department of Transportation to widen I-10 in Harrison and Hancock counties along a major freight corridor of regional significance.
- $30 million to the California Department of Transportation (Santa Cruz County) for the Watsonville-Cruz Multimodal Corridor Program which will construct approximately 2.5 miles of State Route 1 auxiliary lanes and a Bus on Shoulder facility between Freedom Boulevard and State Park Drive, construct approximately 1.25 miles of the New Coastal Rail Trail within Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line right-of-way, and fund the purchase of four new zero-emission buses.