New infrastructure bill

Charlie_mta

Charlie_mta

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Now that the House has passed the infrastructure bill, what projects in the Boston metro area could feasibly get funded by it? Transit in the bill is funded at $39 billion, so I'm thinking the Red-Blue Connector design and construction would be a top candidate. Roads and Bridges is at $110 billion, so the Mass Pike Allston interchange and grounding the Mass Pike viaduct thru the Throat area would be a great project to fund.
 
I'm personally hopeful that besides the obvious Allston pike and Red Blue, that the following come off the back burner:
1) 93/95 interchange reconstruction, maybe 495/90 as well.
2) Southside CR maintenance facility (Readville, currently in design) and concurrent CR electrification
3) SCR Full Build, aka Stoughton Electric
4) Capitol Corridor to Manchester/ Concord
 
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Charlie_mta said:
Now that the House has passed the infrastructure bill, what projects in the Boston metro area could feasibly get funded by it? Transit in the bill is funded at $39 billion, so I'm thinking the Red-Blue Connector design and construction would be a top candidate. Roads and Bridges is at $110 billion, so the Mass Pike Allston interchange and grounding the Mass Pike viaduct thru the Throat area would be a great project to fund.
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I'm not reading the text of the bill but you would think that the projects that would be funded would be part of the bill.
 
jklo said:
I'm not reading the text of the bill but you would think that the projects that would be funded would be part of the bill.
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Not really? A quick read says it's structured as mostly grant and formula distributions, with the notable exceptions of Amtrak and WMTA money. While the original version the House sent the senate back in July did have several billion for specific local earmarks, those were summarily deleted in their totality by the Senate in August. This recent passage by the house is, by all appearances, unamended from that text. The only specific projects I can find are a pair of waterworks projects out west and the Alaska highway.

Edit: For context, attached is the list of earmarks in the previous version of the infrastructure bill. None of this is in the final bill, but it shows that the local earmarks were typically minor.projects.
 

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Am I wrong in seeing no allocations here? Like I'd be expecting line items or at least allocation amounts. So for example Title II, Sub C, section 22308, wouldn't you expect to see an amount or two? Maybe a link to more details? Opacity problem.
 
BeyondRevenue said:
Am I wrong in seeing no allocations here? Like I'd be expecting line items or at least allocation amounts. So for example Title II, Sub C, section 22308, wouldn't you expect to see an amount or two? Maybe a link to more details? Opacity problem.
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Not exactly... That particular section you're looking at isn't precisely a new project, or directing new funding be made available. Instead by amending existing law, it's directing how DOT uses it's available funds by creating the corridor program and establishing guidance, all while using existing federal and state funding sources both within this new bill and existing. Think of it as a mangerial directive from congress. A lot of this bill is the same way, with the funding allocations generally being broad strokes and the actual direction further down, with the actual amount of funds going to each directive being a departmental decision.
 
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Stlin said:
Not exactly... That particular section you're looking at isn't precisely a new project, or directing new funding be made available. Instead by amending existing law, it's directing how DOT uses it's available funds by creating the corridor program and establishing guidance, all while using existing federal and state funding sources both within this new bill and existing. Think of it as a mangerial directive from congress. A lot of this bill is the same way, with the funding allocations generally being broad strokes and the actual direction further down, with the actual amount of funds going to each directive being a departmental decision.
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Yeah. They didn’t teach that in Saturday Morning Cartoons
 
Stlin said:
I'm personally hopeful that besides the obvious Allston pike and Red Blue, that the following come off the back burner:
1) 93/95 interchange reconstruction, maybe 495/90 as well.
2) Southside CR maintenance facility (Readville, currently in design) and concurrent CR electrification
3) SCR Full Build, aka Stoughton Electric
4) Capitol Corridor to Manchester/ Concord
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495/90 interchange reconstruction is already funded and ready for construction. The Design-Build contract was just advertised last week. Funded at $339 Million. Its why they accelerated the bridge replacements on the Pike this year.
 
The earmark section (on pages 47 to 178 of the PDF) seem to be small, shovel ready things good for ribbon-cutting before the next election. They seem to max out at about $18M (the biggest number I saw) and to be mostly in the $1m to $9m range

Meanwhile, there are big allocated-but-unprogrammed chunks. Such as the $66B that Amtrak will split with the Freight RRs, which I uldn't see exactly broken out, but we know Amtrak's will be split between known NEC projects and projects that'll require the cooperation of both the states and the Freight RRs (e.g. new trains to Reading PA, Allentown, and Scranton need local cooperation, or the money will go elsewhere, maybe at the FRA's discretion?)

A better view may be this one from the Washington Post's What’s in the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package for the "allocation chunks" (which are unchanged since the Senate passed)
2021-11-06 17_07_21-Here’s what’s in the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package - The Washington...png
 
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I wouldn't be surprised if most if not all of the money allocated to the NEC goes to refurbishing or (hopefully) building a new set of tunnels, the bottleneck under the hudson into NYC is huge and delays happen frequently due to the lasting effects from hurricane sandy
 
matredsoxfan5 said:
495/90 interchange reconstruction is already funded and ready for construction. The Design-Build contract was just advertised last week. Funded at $339 Million. Its why they accelerated the bridge replacements on the Pike this year.
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Ritchie Neal will get E/W Rail. Guaranteed
 
Recent reports say that the new NYC tunnels and Portal Bridge have already been separately funded (before this bill, NJ & NY cut multilateral funding deals with NJ Transit (bridge) and NY & NJ & Amtrak (tunnel))
 
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Participate at your monthly MPO Meetings, especially during the months of March, April, and May when Massachusetts MPO’s are developing their 5-year Transportation Improvement Programs (TIPs). All federal spending on transportation projects need to be programmed by the voting members of our Metropolitan Planning Organizations, a process that welcomes/includes public comment and—for reasons unbeknownst to me—there is very rarely public participation on.

And please bear in mind that MPO’s cannot just program every project under the sun that people want: the TIPs are fiscally constrained documents and projects must be design-ready in order for federal funds to be obligated on them. Greater participation in regional planning processes make for more thoughtful project prioritization and better project delivery. I’m sharing this here because I know there are a lot of advocates on here for different transportation interests, and as someone professionally active with the programming of transportation projects throughout the Commonwealth I am often surprised at how few advocates are actively engaged with the process of programming federal funds on local/regional projects. We listen…
 
WCVB says “Mass transit in MA will get $2.5B” what does that mean?
 
Arlington said:
WCVB says “Mass transit in MA will get $2.5B” what does that mean?
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That the Commonwealth will have to match it, so $5B worth of projects. The MBTA will probably try to get a much going to SOGR as they can.
 
Last I knew there was $5B for BEBs
And don't forget that CR to NH, E/W Rail, some electrification upgrades and possibly SCR would come from the "AMTRAK"pot, not the mass transit pot
 
Taper your enthusiasm guys... its cost 2 billion for 2 miles of GLX track.

We will be lucky if we get one small project completed.
 
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