Passenger rail in North Carolina & Virginia gets boost

On December 8th, President Biden and Department of Transportation officials announced a $1.09 billion grant to support North Carolina passenger railway development. This grant is part of more than 8 billion dollars invested throughout the country from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The grant is the largest that NC Department of Transportation (NCDOT) has ever received. 

A few days after this announcement, another seven grants which total $3.5 million were also awarded to the NCDOT for further railway development. 

What will the funding do?

The $1.09 billion grant will go towards initial construction of the railway that connects Raleigh to Richmond, Virginia, including the S-Line rail corridor between Raleigh and Wake Forest. This generous funding will also go towards connecting rural and urban communities within North Carolina. In addition to this very large source of funding, the Federal Rail Agency awarded the NCDOT another $3.5 Million in grants to enhance existing passenger railway services between Charlotte and Raleigh as well as expanding rail services across the state and between neighboring states. 

Why expanding railways is great news

Transportation is the number one source of climate warming pollutants, contributing around 29% of globally emitted greenhouse gasses. Expanding public transportation as an alternative to cars and air travel could cut emissions significantly.

Passenger rail is a much more efficient form of transportation than cars, and cars are the number one source of pollution in our transportation sector. Light-duty vehicles contribute to 58% of greenhouse gas emissions over the 2% contributed by rail. Railways are a more efficient mode of transportation since they can transport more people in a smaller space than highways full of individual cars. Without congestion that you would get with normal traffic, less space needs to be dedicated to concrete roads and less time dedicated to sitting in still traffic, idling and releasing harmful emissions while going nowhere. 

Environment North Carolina Advocate, Emily Mason, said, “Expanding public transportation will help North Carolinians make more environmentally friendly travel choices and help connect us to each other as well as to neighboring states. Funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for passenger railways is going to be a game changer when it comes to cutting down on emissions from the transportation sector.”