Murphy touts $19M for Northeast railway funding in Stamford
Murphy touts $19M for Northeast railway funding in Stamford
STAMFORD — U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy visited the Stamford Transportation Center on Monday morning bearing a belated Christmas gift for Connecticut rail commuters.
Nearly a year after the tragic Amtrak accident in Philadelphia, Murphy announced a new $19.3 million federal fund that will be specifically dedicated to transit construction as well as safety improvements along the Northeast Corridor railway system.
“We’ve seen the tragic loss of life on the Northeast Corridor over the course of the last several years, and we’ve seen our fair share of tragedy here in Connecticut as well,” said Murphy. “We fought very hard in the Appropriations Committee to recognize that we needed a special account to fund transportation safety improvements.”
Murphy, accompanied by Commissioner Jim Redeker of the Connecticut Department of Transportation and state Rep. Terry Adams, D-146, was proud to reveal a five-year, $19-million fund, which is part of a much larger $1.4 billion that will be going to Amtrak for rail safety improvements all over the country. While Murphy acknowledges that the fund is only “a drop in the barrel,” he also argues that the precedent set is more important than the actual money contributed.
“I don’t want to overstate this new fund because it is only a small amount of money. But, it’s the first time that we have dedicated money specifically to the stretch of track between Washington and Boston,” said Murphy. “We got members of the Senate from Florida, Missouri, and California to support a new account that will only go to a handful of states. That’s virtually unprecedented.”
The fund marks a new strategy for the federal government. Typically, federal money is dispersed to Amtrak, where it is then re-allocated to its operations across the nation as the company sees fit. However, thanks to this direct imbursement to the Northeast Corridor, local municipalities will be able to directly revitalize the nation’s oldest and busiest set of tracks between Washington and Boston.
Redeker said that the federal funding will be used towards replacing and rehabilitating movable bridges and instituting a new signal system and Positive Train Control system that will increase speed and safety simultaneously, among other infrastructure improvements as well.
“We’ve had the plans. The funding is finally now falling into place, so it’s really a milestone event of predictable funding from the federal and state levels that will help us fund the improvement of the Northeast Corridor,” said Redeker.
In addition to the special fund, the new Transportation and Housing Budget passed by Congress will also include a $753 million increase to the Federal Transit Administration, much of which Murphy believes will be funneled back into the Northeast Corridor.