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On Dec. 11, Federal Railroad Administration awarded 10 states $5.4 million in hazard-elimination program grants to enhance safety along federally designated high-speed rail corridors.


Hazard eliminations include closing, consolidating or grade-separating crossings; installing or upgrading automated warning devices using bells, flashing lights and/or gates; improving track circuitry; upgrading crossing surfaces, sight distances or illumination; and installing advanced train-control or traffic-control systems.


"A by-product of this grant program is our ability to incorporate new and innovative strategies for reducing grade-crossing incidents and the deaths and injuries that so often accompany them," said FRA Administrator Allan Rutter in a prepared statement.


FRA awarded $1.5 million to New York; $1.4 million to Louisiana; $800,000 to South Carolina; $383,000 to Alabama; $250,000 each to Minnesota, Wisconsin and Virginia, $200,000 each to California and Virginia; and $163,000 to Ohio.


Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century expanded the federal highway-rail grade-crossing hazard elimination program, which since 1993 has provided funds to help states improve 300, close 116 and grade-separate five crossings.


Program funds can cover up to 100 percent of a project's total engineering and construction costs.