Dive Brief:
- The Federal Transit Administration announced a $1.28 billion capital investment grant on Aug. 7 to add capacity on Utah’s FrontRunner commuter rail service.
- The project will add a second track in certain locations, one new train station and 10 additional train sets to increase train frequency along an 83-mile corridor connecting Ogden, Salt Lake City and Provo.
- The project is in its engineering phase. Construction is expected to start next year and be completed in 2030.
Dive Insight:
The FTA’s grant announcement does not mean that money will begin flowing to the project immediately. The grant will be subject to completion of “all financial, technical, and legal requirements” and congressional appropriations, the agency said in a press release.
Before this announcement, the FTA hadn’t signed any new Capital Investment Grants since the beginning of the Trump administration, according to a July 27 New York Times report. These discretionary grants fund capital investments for heavy rail, commuter rail, light rail, streetcars and bus rapid transit systems.
On Tuesday, 42 Democratic senators and representatives sent a letter to FTA Acting Deputy Administrator Matthew Cahill and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought expressing concerns about what they called a “growing backlog of projects.” The letter noted the FrontRunner project, along with pending projects in Boston and Los Angeles.
According to the letter, the FTA “currently has access to more than $1.9 billion in unobligated and unallocated funds” for CIG-eligible projects. “We are very concerned that delaying the CIG project pipeline, while advancing only the Utah project, is potentially rooted in partisan political considerations, which could further violate statutory requirements,” the letter states.
Congress is working on the next multi-year surface transportation legislation. Although the House put forward a five-year, $580 billion bill in May, it’s unlikely to pass before Sept. 30, when funding from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act expires. The Senate passed a continuing resolution to fund the government until Dec. 11, but it would reduce public transit investment by 20% and passenger rail by 83% from current levels, according to the American Public Transportation Association.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy proposed eliminating the Highway Trust Fund’s mass transit account, which provides funding for public transportation, in a July 22 letter to six senators outlining the administration’s priorities, further clouding transit funding.
