Joe Biden administration issues $16.4 billion in Northeast Corridor rail grants

Yesterday, Amtrak and partners were granted an additional $16.4 billion from Joe Biden's 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act ("Bipartisan Infrastructure Law") to conduct major upgrades and repairs to the Northeast Corridor (NEC), the agency's most popular and most profitable route.

You can access the individual project summaries here: FY 2022-23 Northeast Corridor for the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail Program (FSP-NEC) Selections: Project Summaries. Here is the NEC grant PDF directly.

A large portion of this funding is going toward projects that are part of the Gateway Program, which seeks to make enormous infrastructure upgrades to the NEC near New York City: in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Bridge and tunnel upgrades in Maryland are also significant. Notably, there is a grant to study one of the the slowest sections of the NEC between New Haven, CT and Providence, RI, a bottleneck in train speeds due to its windy tracks. This area has been on the radar for a while and is referred to as an area for more study by the NEC Future Tier 1 Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) because of its delicate natural wildlife habitats. See the Connecticut–Rhode Island–Massachusetts Area Fact Sheet and the New Haven to Providence Market Study. See also: NEC Commission, Chapter 4: New England.

The grants announced today will support 12 Amtrak-led projects through the FRA’s Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail Program (Fed-State NEC):

• Frederick Douglass Tunnel Program (up to $4.7B)
• Susquehanna River Rail Bridge Project (up to $2.08B)
• East River Tunnel Rehabilitation Project (up to $1.26B)
• Connecticut River Bridge Replacement Project (up to $826.64M)
• Dock Bridge Rehabilitation Project (up to $300.18M)
• Sawtooth Bridges Replacement Project (up to $133.32M)
• Baltimore Penn Station Redevelopment (up to $108.32M)
• Pelham Bay Bridge Replacement Project (up to $58.27M)
• Gunpowder River Bridge Replacement Program (up to $30M)
• NEC South End Infrastructure Renewal and Speed Improvement Planning Study (up to $21.6M)
• Bush River Bridge Replacement Program (up to $18.8M)
• New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study (up to $4M)

Projects led by partner agencies, but which Amtrak is working closely with:

Another 13 NEC projects led by Amtrak’s partners also received funding, including:

• Hudson Tunnel Project – Gateway Development Commission (up to $3.79B)
• Penn Station Access – MTA (up to $1.64B)
• Walk Bridge Replacement Project – CTDOT (up to $465M)
• Devon Bridge Replacement Project – CTDOT (up to $245.92M)
• Delco Lead [and County Yard Project] – NJ TRANSIT (up to $180.9M)
• New Haven Line Power Improvement Program – CTDOT (up to $122.8M)
• Devon Bridge Interim Repairs – CTDOT (up to $119.32M)
• Hartford Line Rail Program Double Track (Phase 3B) Project – CTDOT (up to $104.86M)
• New Haven Line Track Improvement and Mobility Enhancement Part 1 and 3 – CTDOT (up to $71.64M)
• Newark Penn Station Vertical Circulation Improvements – NJ TRANSIT (up to $59.2M)
• Reconstruction of Cornwells Heights Station – SEPTA (up to $30.5M)
• Saugatuck River Bridge Replacement – CTDOT (up to $23.2M)
• New Haven Line Network Infrastructure Upgrade Project – CTDOT (up to $15.4M)

Forgive the random assortment of links: not all of these projects have high-level web pages from Amtrak and partners, so I've linked to some random press releases and other places with slightly more description (or maybe other relevant info... or not). The FRA's project summaries are probably somewhat more useful for some of the smaller projects.

Many of these projects are exciting to me personally because, at the moment, I happen to live on the Northeast Corridor and very much recognize when my train goes from 150 mph to 30 mph so that it can cross a century-old bridge. (I'm exaggerating a little... but only a little.)

Alon Levy provides commentary on Amtrak's figures on their blog post "The Northeast Corridor Rail Grants" (11/6). They are less pleased with the way the money has been allocated, suggesting mainly that these projects, while reasonably useful, have seen huge cost increases due to scope creep from politicians and other stakeholders. Additionally, they say that some of the metrics that agencies propose as reasons to make these upgrades, especially for old bridges, are hard to measure and may not amount to much in the real world, unless agencies make other changes to spending/maintenance practices.

[The Frederick Douglass Tunnel is] not a bad project: the maintenance cost savings are real, as is the 2.5 minute improvement in trip time. But 2.5 minutes are not worth $6 billion, or even $6 billion net of maintenance. In 2023 dollars, the estimate from 2011 is $1.1 billion, which I think is fine on the margin – there are lower-hanging fruit out there, but the tunnel doesn’t compete with the lowest-hanging fruit but with the $29 billion-hanging fruit and it should be very competitive there. But when costs explode this much, there are other things that could be done better.

The Northeast Corridor is full of movable bridges, which are wishlisted for replacement with high fixed spans. The benefits of those replacements are there, mainly in maintenance costs (but see below on the Connecticut River), but that does not justify the multi-billion dollar budgets of many of them. The Susquehanna River Rail Bridge, the biggest grant in this section, is $2.08 billion in federal funding; the environmental impact study said that in 2015 dollars it was $930 million. The benefits in the EIS include lower maintenance costs, but those are not quantified, even in places where other elements (like the area’s demographics) are.

Some other items on the list are not so bad. The second largest item in the grant, $3.79 billion, is increasing the federal contribution to the Hudson Tunnel Project from about 50% to about 70%. I have questions about why it’s necessary – it looks like it’s covering a cost overrun – but it’s not terrible, and by cost it’s by far the biggest reasonable item in this grant.

What they think should have been prioritized instead/in addition:

The two most complex flat junctions of the Northeast Corridor near New York, Hunter in New Jersey and Shell in New Rochelle, are missing (and Hunter is on the New Jersey Transit wishlist); Hunter is estimated at $300 million and would make it much more straightforward to timetable Northeast Corridor commuter and intercity trains together, and Shell would likely cost the same and also facilitate the same for Penn Station Access. The Hartford Line is getting investment into double track, but no electrification, which American railroads keep underrating.

The Effective Transit Alliance's "Modernizing New York Commuter Rail" report lists out a few of the New York City region's most critical needs, including the Hudson River Tunnels, Portal Bridges, Hunter Flyover, Mid-Line Loop, and other interlocking junctions that currently cause slowdowns. In addition, NEC transit agencies need to focus heavily on electrifying all of their tracks to improve operational efficiency, allow for faster trains, and reduce emissions.

I don't have the insight that Levy does into cost overruns specifically, but I think it's valuable to make many of these upgrades in general. The upgraded 150-year-old Frederick Douglass Tunnel is not just a speed benefit but addresses a genuine safety hazard, the tunnel presently being at moderate risk of collapse. Lots of the bridge replacements are going to become increasingly urgent eventually (and more expensive later). Though Levy's comment about bypassing sections of unpalatable Connecticut NEC tracks is a good one, those lines would continue to be used by regional transit agencies connecting to the NEC proper anyway, so it isn't necessarily wasted money. And as one commenter on the article notes, bridges like the Susquehanna would result in significant speed improvements, in this case going from 90 mph to 160 mph (faster than any speed currently permitted on the NEC), as well as upgrades from two tracks to four. I can't say whether that's worth exactly the amount it will cost, but it is a real benefit.

See also, NEC inventory:

• NEC Inventory/backlog
• NEC backlog PDF version
• NEC backlog interactive map (not yet updated, but soon)