What Biden’s Infrastructure Plan Could Mean for Northeast Roads

Last week, President Biden unveiled his plans for a $2 trillion infrastructure bill. The far-reaching proposal, entitled The American Jobs Plan, covers everything improvements to water systems to investments in caregivers.

Most notably, the bill would finally address the country’s long-failing transportation infrastructure by investing $621 billion in the sector. (The American Society of Civil Engineers recently gave America’s infrastructure a C- grade.) The funding would include $115 billion for bridges and roads improvements. According to the White House, the money will be used to modernize “the bridges, highways, roads, and main streets that are in most critical need of repair.” This is good news for motorists in the Northeast as the region has more than its fair share of the worst roads in the country.

The largest allocation of funds to the transportation sector would be the $174 billion in electric vehicle (EV) investments. This will help provide consumers rebates and tax incentives for purchasing EVs, as well as establish grant and incentive programs for state and local governments and the private companies to build an additional 500,000 EVs chargers by 2030. The dearth of public charging stations is seen as one of the main hurdles to a wider adoption of EVs in the U.S.

Other transportation funds would include $20 billion to improve road safety, $85 billion for existing public transit, $80 billion for railways, $50 billion to improve infrastructure resilience, $25 billion for airports, $17 billion for waterways and ports of entry, $20 billion to reconnect urban neighborhoods cut off by highways.

It’s important to remember that this is simply the president’s proposed legislation. It still needs to be approved by Congress, a process that could likely see the amount of spending, and where it is spent, altered significantly.

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