Transportation Infrastructure
January 25, 2023
“Our transportation system serves as a backbone of our economy. It affects how our businesses compete in a global economy, it affects how people get to and from work, and it affects their home life as well.” – Sen. Cantwell
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is delivering a once-in-a-generation $350 billion investment in rebuilding and modernizing our nation’s infrastructure, including more than $130 billion in investments in major freight routes authorized by the Commerce Committee.
For American families, reducing congestion on major freight routes helps lower the cost of food and other goods. Modernizing roads and bridges and eliminating at-grade railroad crossings makes driving, biking and walking safer and means less time sitting in traffic.
For American farmers and other exporters, faster transportation makes their products more competitive in international markets.
Improving Freight Congestion to Lower Costs:
“Fast freight movement means jobs. Our farmers understand it, and the business community gets it.” – Sen. Cantwell
The pandemic created supply chain disruptions across the globe, increasing the costs of goods and making it harder for U.S. businesses to get their products to the marketplace.
With demand for freight expected to grow 40 percent by 2045, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes the Sen. Cantwell-authored Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (INFRA) grant program funded at $8 billion that invests in freight projects that have a significant national or regional economic impact.
The $5 billion Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements Program (CRISI) funds projects that improve the efficiency of railroads.
And the $7.5 billion Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grant program provides critical multimodal funding for local infrastructure projects, including road, rail or port improvements.
PROJECT SPOTLIGHT: Wenatchee’s Apple Capital Loop
Sen. Cantwell and Sec. Buttigieg announce Apple Capital Loop investment in Wenatchee
Trucking plays a central role in American freight shipping. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes Sen. Baldwin’s Women in Trucking Workforce Act, which helps the DOT and the trucking industry learn how to better recruit women into trucking careers.
“Women currently make up less than 10 percent of the truck driving workforce, and removing the barriers that get in the way of women pursuing and retaining careers in trucking is key.” - Sen. Baldwin
Sen. Baldwin visits a Wisconsin trucking site to support her bill
that expands the workforce for women and strengthens supply chains in August 2022
Modernizing Passenger Rail Service:
“For fifty years, Amtrak lines have been a lifeblood of travel in the United States. We must continue to invest in our celebrated passenger rail system because Amtrak lines like these link people to economic opportunities, tourism destinations, and other communities around our state and across the country.”
– Sen. Cantwell
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes a historic $58 billion in passenger rail funding, allowing states and Amtrak to expand and improve service. It includes $12 billion to expand passenger rail networks like Washington’s Amtrak Cascades service. Sens. Blumenthal and Markey secured a historic $30 billion investment that addresses major projects and the on-time performance of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.
For people traveling between major cities, these improvements provide alternatives to the hassle of air travel or sitting in traffic in a car.
For owners of tourism-related small businesses, better rail service will bring more customers to their area.
As part of his continued effort to preserve and expand commuter rail access, Sen. Tester worked to ensure that Amtrak could not eliminate long-distance routes. Included in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is guidance and funding for an Amtrak Daily Long-Distance Service Study and working group to assess and advocate for the restoration of discontinued essential long-distance routes like the North Coast Hiawatha.
Sen. Tester emphasizes the need for rail expansion in Western states
at an Amtrak nomination hearing in September 2022
Improving Rail Safety:
“Too many people are injured or killed at at-grade crossings, and the safest crossing is one that does not exist. Crossings can also delay the movement of people and goods all across the United States, hurting our competitiveness.” – Sen. Cantwell
In the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Sen. Cantwell and Sen. Blunt authored the $3 billion Railroad Crossing Elimination grant program – the first-ever dedicated program to help communities address dangerous and costly highway-rail crossing delays.
Car drivers and train passengers alike will get to their destinations faster. And eliminating at-grade crossings makes roads safer for everyone.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also included Sen. Tester’s Right Track Act and Blocked Railroad Crossing Bill, which improves safety at rural train crossings and addresses instances of blocked highway-railroad crossings across the U.S.
Improving Roadway Safety:
“We need strong federal leadership to combat the safety crisis on our roadways. Vehicle fatalities have increased a staggering 18 percent since the pandemic started." – Sen. Cantwell
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimated that nearly 43,000 people died from traffic fatalities in 2021, up 10.5 percent over the year before.
Local communities need federal support in designing and implementing creative safety solutions and Sen. Cantwell’s brand-new Safe Streets and Roads for All program helps local communities implement safety plans. Additional technological innovations are ready to be adopted in all cars that could help save lives. We can standardize technology and ensure all new cars are equipped with automatic emergency braking, lane keep assist and impairment prevention technology.
When someone is driving, riding transit, biking or walking, roads and vehicles that are designed for safety make accidents less frequent and less likely to be fatal when they happen.
For testing vehicle crash safety, NHTSA’s five-star vehicle safety rating program currently does not use female crash test dummies in the driver’s seat for all types of crash tests. And worse, NHTSA’s female crash test dummies fail to represent an average woman.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes Sen. Peters’s FAIR Crash Tests Act, which ensures consumers have vehicle safety information by requiring DOT to update their five-star vehicle safety rating program, also known as the New Car Assessment Program.
“The current federal vehicle safety tests are simply outdated and need to be modernized. This bill would require a comprehensive look into – and improve our understanding of – how federal vehicle safety tests impact the safety of all drivers and passengers on our roads. Improving vehicle safety and testing standards will save lives, and I’ll be working with my colleagues on a bipartisan basis to move this legislation forward.” - Sen. Peters
Sen. Peters, chair of the subcommittee on Surface Transportation
To improve consumer safety, the law includes Sen. Klobuchar’s Government Accountability Study to find the number of vehicles with open recalls that are being used by Transportation Network Companies. This provides transparency to help consumers trust that the vehicles they are riding in are safe.
To keep our roads safe from drunk driving, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes Sen. Luján’s landmark drunk driving provisions, the Reduce Impaired Driving for Everyone (RIDE) Act, that sets the nation on a path to eliminate drunk driving, which is currently responsible for about one-third of all roadway fatalities.
“Too many families across America have felt the pain of losing a loved one from drunk and impaired driving crashes. After years of advocacy from survivors and victims’ families, the Senate took action to help end drunk and impaired driving with the inclusion of these measures in the bipartisan infrastructure legislation. As a victim and survivor of a drunk driving crash, I know how important this legislation is for those like me who live to tell the story and the thousands every year who can’t.” - Sen. Luján
Sen. Luján asks the National Highway Traffic Safety Administrator nominee
about car technology to prevent impaired driving in December 2021
Bringing Innovation to Transportation Infrastructure:
Sen. Cantwell and Sen. Rosen supported the implementation of “smart technologies” like traffic sensors and signals to automatic cars that can help make transportation even safer and reduce traffic. The $500 million Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) grant program encourages states and localities to add advanced “smart” technologies” to their transportation systems to solve real-world challenges they face.
Taking on Large Infrastructure Projects that Span Regions:
“We thought there were projects that were so costly, but had regional significance to the nation, that they deserved a category of funding all their own.”
– Sen. Cantwell
A 2017 Treasury report identified 40 transportation and water projects that would create a total of $1.3 trillion in economic benefit. To tackle these large projects – that are too large or complex for one state or city alone, Sen. Cantwell authored the new $5 billion Megaprojects grant program.
