The funding comes from a discretionary grant program aimed at supporting infrastructure projects too massive or complex for traditional funding mechanisms.
The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) announced close to $1.2 billion awarded to nine applicants for the National Infrastructure Project Assistance (Mega) discretionary grant program. The program “funds projects that are too large or complex for traditional funding programs” such as bridge, port, highway, passenger rail, and other major projects.
According to USDOT, “Applications were evaluated based on several criteria, including safety, ability to return transportation infrastructure to a state of good repair, economic benefits like the creation of quality jobs, supply chain resiliency, environmental sustainability and climate resiliency, equity, and innovation.”
The grants include $78 million for Philadelphia’s Roosevelt Boulevard Multimodal Project, which will make improvements on one of the city’s most dangerous streets; $292 million for concrete casing at New York’s Hudson Yards that lays a foundation for the Gateway Project and preserves right-of-way for the Hudson River Tunnel; $60 million for a freeway widening project in Diamondhead, Mississippi; and $260 million for bridge replacement projects in Louisiana and North Carolina.
Planetizen previously covered reporting on the Brent Spence Bridge, which serves as an important freight corridor over the Ohio River. A proposal to improve the bridge and build an adjacent bridge to relieve traffic received $250 million in Mega funding and $1.6 billion in Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) funding last month.
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