FRANKFORT, Ky. – Six railroad companies will receive grants to fund multimodal freight transportation improvements in Kentucky. For a list of railroad crossing projects, click here.
Jointly administered by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s (KYTC) Division of Planning and Division of Right of Way and Utilities, the Kentucky Rail Crossing Improvement (KRCI) Program will fund 80 percent of the total project costs to maintain and improve public at-grade rail crossings in 10 Kentucky counties.
Awards were issued to Norfolk Southern, CSX, Paducah and Louisville Railway, RJ Corman Railroad Group, Fredonia Valley Railroad, and Kentucky Railway Museum. The grants will fund 24 safety improvement projects, ranging from signal upgrades and new signage to removing obstructive vegetation to improve sight distance. The award recipients will provide a 20 percent local match.
Roughly half of the projects involve the reconstruction of existing crossings. The work involves removing the crossing and replacing it with new drainage and subgrade underneath the tracks, new ballasts and crossing panels and placing new asphalt pavement from the outer rails to the approaching roads.
When selecting grant recipients, the Cabinet examined factors such as crash history, traffic (vehicle, train, truck), physical condition, project cost and the federal railroad crossing score. One of the selected crossing reconstruction projects had average daily traffic counts as high as 9,066.
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