On Monday morning, Amtrak and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) announced that they would finance over two dozen infrastructure upgrades that will enable faster, more frequent, and more reliable service along the Northeast Corridor rail lines between Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.
The projects collectively represent $16.4 billion in investment for the nation's busiest intercity passenger rail corridor.
While none of the funded projects are located in Massachusetts, the projects will enable faster, more reliable train service in the state of Connecticut, which will benefit Bay State riders headed south from Springfield or Boston:
- Amtrak and the state of Connecticut will get $1.6 billion to replace four aging bridges on the coastal Northeast Corridor rail line between New London and Stamford.
- Connecticut will also receive up to $104 million to add a second track to some of the last remaining single-track segments of the Hartford Line north of Hartford. The 6.2 miles' worth of new track will enable more trains to pass each other on Amtrak's Northeast Regional, Vermonter, and Valley Flyer routes, which also share the tracks with the CTRail Hartford Line regional rail service.
- The New Haven Line between New York and New Haven will get a total of $210 million for track, signal, and power upgrades.
- Connecticut and Rhode Island will also share $4 million for a planning study to evaluate "future infrastructure, speed, and capacity improvement options between New Haven, CT, and Providence, RI."
The grants will also fund several massive infrastructure upgrades in New York City, including $3.8 billion for a new tunnel under the Hudson River to expand capacity between New Jersey and New York's Penn Station, and $1.6 billion to "comprehensively rehabilitate 19 miles of the Amtrak-owned Hell Gate Line connecting New York Penn Station and New Rochelle, NY."
“These investments will make our busiest passenger railroad safer, faster, and more reliable, which means fewer delays and shorter commutes for the 800,000 passengers who rely on the Northeast Corridor every day,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in a press release issued Monday morning.
These grants come from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which allocated $6 billion in funding for Amtrak's Northeast Corridor plus an additional $36 billion for a state-supported passenger rail projects.
You can read additional details about the funded projects from the Federal Railroad Administration.
