Biden administration announces infrastructure grants

The Biden administration announced more than $368 million in railroad infrastructure projects on Thursday, including a passenger line expansion in central Florida, the removal of at-grade crossings in Texas, and a new engineering school at a historically Black university in Baltimore.

The financing is being marketed by the administration as a measure to combat inflation in the shipping industry.

“We’ve got the largest and most extensive rail network in the world here in the U.S., and Americans deserve world-class rail service to go with it. So it’s urgent for us to modernize our railroad infrastructure to get people and goods where they need to get faster, safer and more affordably,” Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg told reporters on a White House call Wednesday previewing the grants.

Buttigieg joined White House infrastructure coordinator Mitch Landrieu and Federal Railroad Administrator Amit Bose in announcing the recipients of the final batch of Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements money under the FAST Act, which was extended by the Obama administration.