U.S. DOT Sends More Than $3 Billion To Reconnect Communities

What happened: The Biden administration March 13 unveiled $3.3 billion in Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhood (RCN) grants for 132 planning, capital construction and regional partnership programs across 41 states and the District of Columbia.  Fifty-two capital construction projects received the bulk of awards at $2.72 billion. The RCN program’s objective is to enhance mobility and access within communities that have been divided by infrastructure choices of the past.

Why it matters: The awards will facilitate a broad range of large planning and construction projects including:

• $50 million: Atlanta’s BeltLine to Flint River Trail project will utilize a multi-use trail to address challenges Southside residents have endured with construction of major interstates around Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
• $159 million: Philadelphia’s “Chinatown Stitch” project will complete the first phase of design and construction work for a highway cap on the Vince Street Expressway to reconnect the portions of Chinatown it separated in the 1990s.
• $80 million: St. George, Utah’s I-15 project will construct two underpasses to facilitate accessibility coinciding with a widening of I-15 currently underway.

Dig deeper for a full project list.