HOUSTON – The Biden-Harris Administration has announced nearly $26 million in grants to five recipients in Texas for projects that will help strengthen transportation infrastructure against the worsening effects of climate change, a press release states.
These grants are five of 80 projects nationwide that will receive nearly $830 million in grant awards to help states and local communities save taxpayers money while strengthening surface-transportation systems and making them more resilient to extreme weather events worsened by the climate crisis, flooding, sea-level rise, heat waves, and other disasters. These grants are the first of their kind dedicated to transportation infrastructure resilience and were made possible by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT) Discretionary Grant Program, which complements PROTECT Formula funding that is already flowing to states for these types of projects. To strengthen America’s climate resilience, President Biden has secured more than $50 billion for climate resilience and adaptation through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, and established a National Climate Resilience Framework, which is advancing locally tailored, community-driven climate resilience strategies.
Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and severe due to climate change and are causing increasing damage to our transportation system, which was primarily designed and built before the realities of our current climate. As part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, the PROTECT Grant Program is funding projects that will strengthen the country’s surface transportation system against extreme weather events, including roads, bridges, highways, public transportation, pedestrian facilities, ports, and intercity passenger rail. By increasing the resilience of these assets, these investments will reduce short- and long-term costs by minimizing future needs for maintenance and reconstruction.
“From wildfires shutting down freight rail lines in California to mudslides closing down a highway in Colorado, from a drought causing the halt of barge traffic on the Mississippi River to subways being flooded in New York, extreme weather, made worse by climate change, is damaging America’s transportation infrastructure, cutting people off from getting to where they need to go, and threatening to raise the cost of goods by disrupting supply chains,” said Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “Today, through a first-of-its-kind program created by President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, we are awarding nearly $830 million to make transportation infrastructure in 39 states and territories more resilient against climate change, so people and supply chains can continue to move safely.”
Project selections in Texas totaling $26 million include:
- The City of San Marcos will receive nearly $13.9 million to complete a stormwater mitigation project in the low-income, underserved neighborhood of Sunset Acres. The project will include improvements to storm drains, installing culverts and manholes, replacing existing sewer lines to increase capacity, and pavement resurfacing related to street improvements.
- Harris County, Texas will receive over $9.6 million to develop a master plan evaluating drainage infrastructure capacity and deficiencies affecting local roadways in the unincorporated areas of the county. Harris County continues to be one of the fastest-growing counties in the nation and has experienced six federally declared flooding disasters since 2015. The plan will target unincorporated areas of the county where road and land development have intensified in recent decades and where, in anticipation of expected future growth, proactive mitigation action is relatively affordable.
- The Houston-Galveston Area Council will receive $1.1 million to develop a Resilience Improvement Plan for the surface transportation system of an eight-county region that experiences repeated extreme weather events, natural disasters, and hazardous flooding conditions. The project will fine-tune previously developed strategies, identify gaps in planning, create a list of priority improvements that can be implemented in the short- and long term, and include a risk-based assessment of vulnerabilities to roadways, culverts, ditches, medians and other transportation assets.
- The Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) will receive $950,000 to conduct a comprehensive resilience plan to assess the vulnerabilities of the transportation network and prioritize strategies to make necessary improvements. The project includes a two-year license to test a new flooding software tool that uses historical rainwater and flood information to identify flood-prone areas, develop better evacuation routes, and pinpoint areas where stormwater drainage can be improved.
- The Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization will receive $485,000 to conduct a Resilience Improvement Plan for the San Antonio-New Braunfels metro area transportation system. The project will explore how extreme weather events and natural disasters would impact the region’s transportation network. The plan also will identify a set of actions and investments that can be made to ensure the system remains viable in two of the nation’s fastest growing cities.