The U.S. Department of Transportation continues to push out funds from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). This week DOT announced $2.1 billion in grants for four major bridge projects, and information is trickling out about $1.2 billion in Mega Project awards. Click here for information on the bridge projects, which include:
$1.385 billion for rehabilitation and repair of the Brent Spence Bridge connecting Ohio and Kentucky, along with construction of a companion bridge and improvements to the approach corridors on I-75 on either side of the Ohio River.
$400 million for the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco to replace, retrofit, and install critical structural elements to improve resiliency against earthquakes.
$185 million to the Connecticut DOT to rehabilitate the Gold Star Memorial Bridge on I-95.
$144 million for the City of Chicago to rehabilitate four bridges over the Calumet River.
ACEC Kentucky and ACEC Illinois leaders attended at the press events yesterday with President Biden and Vice President Harris to announce these grants. In addition to the major bridge grants, U.S. DOT will award $1.2 billion in Mega Project grants for Fiscal Year 2022. Under the statute, DOT must notify Congress and wait 30 days to make a public announcement. But as reported by Jeff Davis at the Eno Center for Transportation, Members of Congress in whose districts those projects are located are issuing press releases about the grant selections. According to the Eno report, here are the selected projects:
Jeff Davis also acquired intel on project applicants that were not selected but may be in line for awards in future funding cycles based on staff ratings. "Out of the 128 applicants, just 16 got the Highly Recommended nod. Those include the nine selectees above and the following seven, which must be considered front-runners for the FY 2023 MEGA selection process."
MEGA Projects Given A "Highly Recommended' Rating But Not Given a Grant, FY 2022 Cycle
AK
Tustumena Replacement Vessel
CA
San Dieguito Double Track/Bridge Replacement
IA
IA 9 Over the Mississippi River, Lansing
MA
North Station Draw 1 Bridge Replacement
NY
Arthur Kill Terminal
PA
Eastern Pittsburgh Multimodal Corridor Project
VA
I-64 Widening Project
"Then 13 out of the 128 applicants got the less desirable, but still acceptable, 'Recommended' rating."
MEGA Projects Given A "Recommended' Rating But Not Given a Grant, FY 2022 Cycle
AZ
I-10 GRIC Corridor Gap
CA
I-10 Corridor Freight-Managed Lane Project
IA
I-380 and Wright Brothers Blvd Interchange
MT
Mineral County I-90 Improvements
NC
I-94 State of Good Repair
ND
Interstate Cross-Median Crash Elimination
NE
I-80 Reconstruction and Expansion
OK
I-35 Corridor Improvements
RI
I-95 Missing Move and Ramps to Quonset BP
TN
I-240 Airways Boulevard
TX
I-30 Canyon Project
UT
O=15 South Iron County Project
VA
Route 123 a I-95 Corridor Improvements
According to the Eno article, "all the other applicants were cited for being insufficient in some way to meet the legal requirements for the law. The most-cited failure was that the application did not demonstrate that the project would be cost-effective."
The congressional notifications were made on December 29, so presumably, the official release from DOT about the awards will come later this month.