WASHINGTON — As debate raged in the nation’s capital over the stimulus bill on its first birthday, federal officials announced that it will provide $35 million for freight rail projects in Western Pennsylvania.
The money is part of a $1.5 billion package of transportation projects revealed Wednesday by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, including a freight corridor run by CSX that is known as the National Gateway Project. Overall, the project received $98 million for the line that is to connect ports with major inland destinations.
The money will go toward raising bridge and tunnel clearances to allow CSX to “double stack” cargo on trains traveling through Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. The federal government and CSX said increasing the loads on rail cars would allow freight to be moved more efficiently and reduce the need for long-haul trucking — easing congestion on highways and cutting gasoline consumption.
The Pennsylvania state government will match the $35 million to boost the National Gateway’s plans for 17 clearance projects in Western Pennsylvania, including seven in Allegheny County, that are scheduled to be finished by the end of 2012. In addition, CSX is planning to build a rail-to-truck terminal in Pittsburgh but has not chosen a site yet.
The other bridge and tunnel construction projects are in Somerset and Bedford counties, along a rail line that follows the Interstate 70-76 corridor from Maryland to Ohio.
Mr. LaHood made the funding announcement from Kansas City, Mo., part of a nationwide blitz by Obama administration Cabinet secretaries promoting the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a measure estimated to cost a total of $862 billion.
Today, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke is scheduled to visit Carnegie Mellon University to announce an initiative to increase broadband Internet access.
The overall effectiveness of the stimulus has been hotly debated since President Barack Obama signed the measure Feb. 17, 2009, but the rhetoric heightened for its anniversary.
“We had a responsibility to do what was right for the U.S. economy and for the American people,” Mr. Obama said Wednesday at an event to mark the occasion. “One year later, it is largely thanks to the Recovery Act that a second depression is no longer a possibility. It’s one of the main reasons the economy has gone from shrinking by 6 percent to growing at about 6 percent.”
Democrats drove the bill through with no Republicans in the House and only three in the Senate — one of whom, Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter, later flipped to the Democratic Party.
Read the full Post-Gazette article here
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