DOT Announces $905 Million in INFRA Grant Awards
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The U.S. Department of Transportation’s recently announced Infrastructure for Rebuilding America grants include several efforts to facilitate freight movement.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on June 30 announced the agency’s plans to award $905 million in INFRA grants. The funding will support 24 projects in 18 states.
One of the largest individual grants, representing $61.5 million, was awarded to the South Dakota Department of Transportation to reconstruct about 28 miles of Interstate 90 in the eastern part of the state. I-90 is South Dakota’s primary east-west corridor and serves as an important freight route.
Jundt
The project will involve adding 11 truck parking spaces to the I-90 rest areas near Salem, which is 40 miles west of Sioux Falls. According to SDDOT traffic data, the stretch of I-90 near Salem averaged more than 2,000 trucks a day prior to the pandemic. The eastbound rest area will be restriped to accommodate the additional parking, while the westbound rest area will require a new alignment for the exit ramp to meet deceleration length regulations.
“I-90 will be safer for all users, including freight handlers, residents and tourists, and it will enhance access to all communities statewide,” SDDOT Secretary Joel Jundt said. “We appreciate U.S. DOT providing this grant to SDDOT.”
In Seattle, some $11.2 million was proposed to repair the West Seattle High-Rise Bridge, a key freight and passenger route that has been closed since March 2020 due to cracks in its concrete structure. Before its closure, it carried about 84,000 cars and trucks and 25,000 bus riders every weekday, according to the Seattle Department of Transportation.
The federal funding also will be used to make repairs related to load rating compliance on the Spokane Street Swing Bridge, which has been carrying trucks and buses that ordinarily would use the High-Rise Bridge. Passenger cars have been required to detour about 5 miles south. The bridge projects are supposed to be completed by the end of 2022.
Durkan
“We are working each day to repair and reopen the West Seattle High-Rise Bridge — the pathway to quickly and safely restoring travel,” Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said. “Investments for this important safety project are essential to meeting our aggressive timeline and re-establishing mobility across the region.”
Other INFRA grant awards meant to facilitate truck flow include $21 million to improve state Route 61, a rural freight corridor in Pennsylvania, and $30 million to ease traffic flow at a chokepoint in Los Angeles County.
Specifically, the funding will be directed to improve the confluence of state routes 57 and 60, which is located north of Anaheim and ranked No. 11 on the American Transportation Research Institute’s 2021 top truck bottlenecks report.
Garcetti
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who joined Buttigieg virtually for the grant announcement, said trucks carrying goods from the Los Angeles area’s ports often get stuck in this corridor’s congestion.
One grant, meant to reduce carbon emissions and truck-related pollution, directs $46.8 million to the Georgia Ports Authority to build the Northeast Georgia Inland Port, a new container port in Gainesville, which is located near interstates 85 and 985. The facility will be directly linked by rail to the Port of Savannah.
As stipulated in the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act of 2015, Congress has a 60-day window to review DOT’s proposed project awards.
DOT assessed projects based on several factors, including their capacity to improve local economies and create jobs. In keeping with the administration’s emphasis on racial equity and environmental justice, the agency also considered how the projects would address those issues.
“These are awards that are going to create jobs by funding rail and highway projects that are economically critical to the region and, in some cases, to the country,” Buttigieg said during the announcement event. “We’re talking about communities finding new economic lifelines.”
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