Iowa Rail

This program funds grants for initiating, restoring, or enhancing intercity passenger rail transportation.  

This program provides funding for highway-rail or pathway-rail grade crossing improvement projects that focus on improving the safety and mobility of people and goods.

This program provides funding for projects that improve the safety, efficiency, and reliability of intercity passenger and freight rail.

The Corridor Identification and Development (Corridor ID) Program is a comprehensive intercity passenger rail planning and development program that will help guide intercity passenger rail development throughout the country and create a pipeline of intercity passenger rail projects ready for implementation.  

This program provides funding for capital projects that reduce the state of good repair backlog, improve performance, or expand or establish new intercity passenger rail service, including privately operated intercity passenger rail service, if an eligible applicant is involved. 

INFRA (the Nationally Significant Multimodal Freight & Highway Projects program) awards competitive grants for multimodal freight and highway projects of national or regional significance to improve the safety, efficiency, and reliability of the movement of freight and people in and across rural and urban areas. 

This USDOT-wide grant opportunity provides funding for major infrastructure projects of regional or national significance. The opportunity combines the National Infrastructure Project Assistance (MEGA) program, the Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (INFRA) program, and the Rural Surface Transportation Grant Program (RURAL) under a single Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) to streamline the funding process for State, regional, and local governments. Options of investments include large, complex projects that are difficult to fund by other means and are likely to generate national or regional economic, mobility, or safety benefits. Eligible projects include highway, bridge, freight, port, passenger rail, and public transportation projects of national or regional significance.  

This USDOT-wide program provides funding for road, rail, transit, and port projects that promise to achieve national objectives. Projects are evaluated on merit criteria that include safety, environmental sustainability, quality of life, economic competitiveness, state of good repair, innovation, and partnership.  

This program makes funding available to establish a center to advance research and development efforts that seek to improve the safety, performance, and sustainability of freight, intercity passenger, and commuter rail. 

FRA also provides technical assistance to the Build America Bureau, manages the U.S. Department of Transportation’s credit and loan programs.  Specific Rail programs and information can be found at this link. 

The crossing safety program participates in the cost of safety improvements at public highway-railroad grade crossings. These funds are used to install new crossing signal devices, to upgrade existing signals, and to provide low-cost improvements, such as increased sight distance, widened crossings, increased signal lens size, or crossing closures. However, the available funding allows only a limited number of safety improvements each year.

Nine hundred thousand dollars in an annual appropriation from Iowa's Road Use Tax Fund assists cities, counties and railroads with surface repairs. Projects selected for funding receive 60% of the cost of repairs from the Grade Crossing Surface Repair Fund. The highway authority and railroad must each agree to pay 20% of the total project cost. When a rail spur at a public crossing is owned by a private industry or agricultural cooperative, that entity assumes the costs normally paid by the railroad as owner of the track.

The RRLGP provides assistance to improve rail facilities that will spur economic development and job growth and provide assistance to railroads for the preservation and improvement of the railroad transportation system. Both grants and loans are available and are awarded based on competitive applications. 

Rail projects are eligible for funding under (ICAAP), which provides funding for projects that reduce congestion, improve traffic flow and reduce vehicle emissions.