(The following story by John D. Boyd appeared on The Journal of Commerce website on April 9, 2010.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Department of Transportation’s payments to states for work done under economic stimulus projects reached $10.264 billion by March 26, up $286 million from a week earlier.
That was also up from about $9.4 billion DOT had disbursed by the end of February, so the department will have sent checks to states totaling around $1 billion during March.
In all, DOT has made nearly $38 billion available for infrastructure projects under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
It will make another $10 billion available under that law, and has already announced support for additional ARRA-backed projects. Most of them will be funded out of an $8 billion account for passenger rail development and out of a $1.5 billion pool for discretionary awards to projects DOT deems of national or regional importance.
Those discretionary awards include a number of rail and port freight projects. And more than half the passenger rail grants will go into upgrades of rail corridors owned and used by freight railroads, so they can take more passenger trains or run them faster. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has said those grants are also intended to increase freight rail efficiencies to lure more truck freight off highways and onto rail.
Most of DOT’s stimulus spending has reimbursed states for work done to resurface highways and repair bridges, though some is also backing new road and bridge construction projects. Some has also gone into airport runway repairs and transit systems.
Transportation stimulus spending outside of DOT has included Coast Guard grants for rail bridge alterations over rivers, lock repairs by the Army Corps of Engineers, and freight equipment replacement funded by the Environmental Protection Agency.