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10/5/2026
The U.S. Department of Transportation has selected 12 projects across the country to receive a total of $426 million in competitive federal grant funding though the Nationally Significant Multimodal Freight & Highway Projects (INFRA) program.
The projects will address road congestion by increasing capacity for bypasses used by freight trucks and by expanding highways, among other bottleneck-reducing efforts, USDOT officials said in a press release. Two of the 12 projects involve grade separation improvements.
Lafayette City-Parish Consolidated Government in Lafayette, Louisiana, secured a $28 million grant to convert a signalized intersection with a grade crossing into a grade-separated interchange. Work includes constructing ramps and flyover bridges, and roadway improvements along about 2.2 miles of Kaliste Saloom Road and about 3.5 miles of U.S. Highway 90. The project will eliminate a high-risk grade crossing and freight bottleneck. It will also reduce last-minute logistics delays to the adjacent commercial airport cargo hub, USDOT officials said.
The other rail-adjacent project selected to receive funding is the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority's (L.A. Metro) State Route 71 gap closure project, phase 2. L.A. Metro is expanding the current four-lane expressway between Interstate 10 and Mission Boulevard to an eight-lane highway, adding one HOV lane and one mixed-flow lane in each direction for about 2 miles. The project also calls for reconstructing two highway bridges over Union Pacific Railroad and Metrolink tracks to bring them into a state of good repair.
L.A. Metro's project received $25 million in INFRA funding. It is expected to eliminate a critical freight bottleneck on the highway system, expand intermodal container capacity along UP rail subdivisions and relieve severe regional congestion, USDOT officials said.