The 12th annual Infrastructure Week , themed United for Infrastructure: Invest. Permit. Build., took place May 13th – May 17th, 2024. To recap the week, the City’s Infrastructure Solutions Team (IST) is highlighting public infrastructure projects in Philadelphia that have been supported and funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL).
IST Site Visits
The IST kicked off Infrastructure Week with a cross-departmental visit to two active bridge construction sites: the Montgomery Avenue Bridge, located between 29th Street and Sedgley Avenue in the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood, and the Christian to Crescent cable stay bridge, located on the East side of the Schuylkill River spanning Christian Street to 34th Street to connect the Schuylkill River Trail. Both bridge sites demonstrate federal, state, and local dollars at work for Philadelphians. These projects are the tangible results of years of collaboration between the City, contractors, and workers taking an idea from planning to construction.
The Chinatown Stitch: Reconnecting Philadelphia’s Chinatown
To celebrate both Infrastructure Week and Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) released a video focused on the Chinatown Stitch: Reconnecting Philadelphia’s Chinatown highway capping project. This project received
approximately $159 million from USDOT’s Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods (RCN) Neighborhood Access and Equity (NAE) Grant Program.
School District of Philadelphia
The School District of Philadelphia (SDP) recently received $7.9 million to double their existing electric bus fleet through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Clean School Bus Program. With this funding, the SDP will add 40 electric buses to their fleet by 2027. This project will not only decrease carbon emissions produced by SDP’s processes, but it will also improve the health of students and the surrounding communities by reducing airborne contaminants and noise pollution.
Explore additional information about how the School District of Philadelphia is implementing sustainable practices through their GreenFutures sustainability plan.
Amtrak: Investing in the Future of Rail
Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, passenger and freight rail will receive $66 billion in advance appropriations for improvements, with another $36 billion available for the Department of Transportation’s rail programs.
Of this $66 billion for rail,
- $22 billion will be allocated to Amtrak to repair and replace old, obsolete fleets and improve stations to be ADA compliant. $6 billion of this funding will be used to modernize the Northeast Corridor’s critical infrastructure, improve stations, and support future ridership growth on the Northeast Corridor (NEC).
- The remaining $44 billion will be available through competitive grant programs under the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).
Since January 2023, the William H. Gray III 30th St. Station Redevelopment project has been underway, which includes major design and construction improvements, new Art at Amtrak by Philadelphia-based artist, Adam Crawford, and Hire30thStreet events. The Amtrak Penn Coach Yard preconstruction, led by Herzog, is slated to begin later this calendar year.
Discover more about the exciting work happening at Amtrak on their website: Amtrak.com/NewEra