As incidents of extreme weather continue to make news around the country, it’s clear that many of our surface transportation systems are not up to the challenge. Increasing resilience in the face of everything from floods, to rising sea levels and heat waves has become an increasingly important goal–and the U.S. DOT has committed funds.
$830 Million Federal Commitment
Eighty projects to make “transportation systems more resilient to extreme weather” have been targeted to receive a total of $830 million from The Department of Transportation. The funds are unique in that they are the “first of their kind dedicated to transportation infrastructure resilience,” though overall, the current administration “has earmarked more than $50 billion for climate-related projects through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.” Specifically, the new funding focuses on bolstering “bridges, roads, ports, rail, transit and other infrastructure across 37 heavily impacted states, Washington, D.C. and the Virgin Islands.” Allocations of the $830 million include:
- South Dakota’s Oglala Sioux Tribe will receive $60 million to improve two sections of BIA Route 33.
- Cedar Rapids, Iowa, will receive $56.4 million to replace the 86-year-old Arc of Justice Bridge, crucial for emergency services during extreme flooding.
- Davis, California, will get nearly $24 million to install cool pavement technologies to combat the urban heat island effect and rehabilitate the parts of the roadway.
- Golden, Colorado, will receive $23.8 million to control flooding in Lena Gulch.
- Philadelphia will receive $14 million to rehabilitate two deteriorating bridges over Wissahickon Creek.
The federal investment in a total of 80 projects across the country aims at “reducing short- and long-term costs by minimizing future needs for maintenance and reconstruction….” Indeed, given that most U.S. transportation systems were “designed before climate impacts,” like extreme weather, were such a challenge, investing in resilience has now become essential, as federal leadership underscores:
From wildfires shutting down freight rail lines in California to mudslides closing down a highway in Colorado, from a drought causing the halt of barge traffic on the Mississippi River to subways being flooded in New York, extreme weather, made worse by climate change, is damaging America’s transportation infrastructure, cutting people off from getting to where they need to go, and threatening to raise the cost of goods by disrupting supply chains….
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