The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) announced it had awarded $12.6 million in grants to nine marine highway projects across the country Friday.
Funded through the America’s Marine Highway Program (AMHP), the grants will go toward addressing supply chain disruptions, enhancing the movement of goods and expanding existing waterborne freight services in Delaware, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, New York, New Jersey, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
“These investments through the America’s Marine Highway Program will help us move more goods, more quickly and more efficiently,” U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said. “In this moment of record demand for goods and shipping, this is an important piece of the Administration’s Port Action Plan to strengthen supply chains, modernize port operations, and lower the cost of goods for American families.”
The DOT said the grants would deliver “near-term action” to help with supply chain disruptions by increasing federal flexibilities for port grants while accelerating port infrastructure grant awards and initiating new construction projects for coastal navigation, inland waterways and land ports of entry. The awards are the first round of expanded port infrastructure grants from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
“America’s Marine Highway Program is an innovative program that encourages the use of America’s navigable waterways for the movement of freight and people as an alternative to land-based transportation,” Acting Maritime Administrator Lucinda Lessley said. “The funding announced today advances our ongoing efforts to help new marine highway services begin operation and to improve existing services.”
The grants included $600,000 for Delaware and New Jersey for the Cape May-Lewes Ferry to support a comprehensive ferry master plan for a new ferryboat design that would include electric charging stations on the ferry boat, as well as other updated modernizations; $200,475 to Hawaii to purchase 99 forklift scales to enhance the new Hawaii Commercial Harbors System Shipping Services Project that will provide real-time weight information about cargo; and $1,408,000 for Indiana and Kentucky for the M-70 Barge Service in the Ports of Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky and beyond to purchase a bridge crane at the new marine terminal in Gallatin County, Kentucky, among others.