The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) is distributing nearly $830 million in grants to 80 different projects aimed at strengthening America’s infrastructure against climate change.
The funding will be spread across 39 states and territories for projects ranging from renovating aging bridges to expanding emergency evacuation routes. These grants are “the first of their kind,” according to USDOT, which partners with state, local and tribal governments with funding made available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act.
Climate change intensifies risks to the country’s transportation infrastructure. The number of billion-dollar weather disasters has reached a record Last year. And even slow-moving disasters like rising seas force communities to adapt to changing landscapes.
Billion-dollar weather disasters hit record high last year
“From drought shutting down barge traffic on the Mississippi River to subway flooding in New York, extreme weather, made worse by climate change, is damaging America’s transportation infrastructure, keeping people from getting there where they need to go, and “It threatens to increase the cost of goods by disrupting supply chains,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. Press release.
USDOT has funds for four different types of projects. About $45 million will be spent on 10 projects to build evacuation routes. An additional $45 million will be spent on planning projects including preparing for evacuations and conducting vulnerability assessments. Eight projects aimed at protecting or relocating coastal infrastructure, including roads and highways, will receive $119 million, including the Manasota Key Bascule Bridge used for storm evacuations in Florida and a section of the Newport Cliff Walk in Rhode Island which collapsed in 2022.
The biggest chunk of money — $621 million — is earmarked for other types of “resilience improvements.” This includes 36 projects aimed at making roads, bridges and other transportation infrastructure more impervious to flooding, rising temperatures and other impacts of climate change.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe, for example, received a $60 million grant to improve Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Route 33, a key route through rural southwest South Dakota and the Indian Reservation of Pine Ridge. The money will be used to raise parts of the road and lay a surface better suited to resist flooding, snow and ice. The plan also includes widening the road and adding shoulders for use in emergencies.
USDOT has a complete list of winners on its website. Overall, the bipartisan infrastructure bill includes 50 billion dollars for climate resilience and adaptation.
The Biden administration recently launched ARPA-I, a research and development project specifically for infrastructure that was also authorized by the bipartisan Infrastructure Act. “If we’re going to spend tens of billions of dollars every year to maintain and improve what we have, let’s invest a little and figure out how to make what we have last longer,” Buttigieg said. said The edge of the initiative last year. “Designing things that we can’t even imagine today. »
