Northeast, California win big in high speed rail grants

The federal government today announced $2 billion in new grants for high-speed passenger rail projects around the country. $800 million will go to rail improvements along the Northeast Corridor, and $300 million for high-speed rail in California.

The funds are left over from $2.4 billion which had been originally allocated to Florida, but which governor Rick Scott returned to the Federal government. Congress rescinded $400 million as part of the recent budget deal, leaving $2 billion to allocate to new recipients.

Despite ideological opposition from a number of Republican governors, there was no shortage of states interested in using the money. USDOT received 98 applications for the funds from 24 states plus the District of Columbia, totaling approximately $10 billion. Clearly there continues to be more demand for passenger rail funding than Congress can keep up with.

As expected, the big winners are the Northeast Corridor and the California high-speed rail project, each of which were given hundreds of millions of dollars. In a little bit of surprise, the Midwest Chicago-hub was also a big winner, with major improvements funded on several corridors.

The Washington region didn’t receive any funds directly, although we will benefit from some of the projects to the north and south. The District applied for but did not receive money. Maryland applied for $415 million and received $22 million that will go to planning for a new Susquehanna River bridge.

Ironically, Virginia didn’t apply for any money but received some anyway, as part of a North Carolina-led application to perform environmental planning work on proposed upgrades to the Richmond-Raleigh corridor.

The Northeast Corridor will benefit from the $450 million devoted to catenary and signal improvements in central New Jersey. This funding will pay for installation of constant-tension catenary over a 24-mile section of track, raising the top speed from 135 to 160 miles per hour. Other Corridor improvements will result in minor trip time improvements and reduction in bottlenecks.

The complete breakdown of grant recipients is shown in the table below. The acronym “NEPA”, which appears a number of times, refers to the National Environmental Policy Act requirement for environmental planning approval of federally-funded projects.

Location	Amount	Purpose
NORTHEAST CORRIDOR
New Jersey	$450m	Power, signal, track, catenary improvements supporting 160mph service.
New York	$295m	Bypass tracks for high-speed trains in NYC area.
Rhode Island	$25m	Bypass tracks for high-speed trains in Kingston area.
Maryland	$22m	Planning & NEPA to replace Susquehanna River bridge.
Rhode Island	$3m	Planning & NEPA for renovations for Providence station.
NORTHEAST (NON-NEC)
New York	$58m	Track, station, signal upgrades to Empire corridor, including replacement of Schenectady station and 4th track at Albany-Rennsselaer station bottleneck.
Pennsylvania	$40m	Track & signal upgrades to Harrisburg-Philadelphia line.
Connecticut	$30m	Double track New Haven-Springfield line.
Mass.-Maine	$21m	Double track Wilmington-Andover line.
New York	$1m	Planning & NEPA for new Rochester station.
MIDWEST
Non-specific	$268m	48 railcars and 7 locomotives for 8 Amtrak corridors in the Midwest.
Michigan	$197m	Track & signal upgrades on Chicagao-Detroit line between Kalamazoo and Dearborn, allowing 110 mph service for 235 miles of corridor.
Illinois	$186m	Track upgrades on Chicago-Saint Louis line between Joliet and Dwight, IL allowing 110 mph service for 220 miles of corridor.
Missouri	$14m	Design for new Mississippi River bridge on Chicago-Saint Louis corridor.
Minnesota	$5m	Planning & NEPA for new 110mph service from Minneapolis to Duluth.
Michigan	$3m	Planning & NEPA for new Ann Arbor station.
SOUTH
Texas	$15m	Planning & NEPA for new Dallas-Houston corridor.
N.C.-Virginia	$4m	NEPA for 110mph upgrades to Richmond-Raleigh corridor.
WEST COAST
California	$300m	20 miles of track construction near Fresno for the 220mph California high speed rail project.
California	$68m	15 railcars and 4 locomotives for existing California Amtrak routes.
Washington	$15m	Track grade separation at the Port of Vancouver, near Portland, OR.
Oregon	$2m	Study of service and capacity needs near Eugene.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.