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After being passed recently by Congress, President Joe Biden’s bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill will directly contribute to the physical infrastructure in the city of Syracuse and central New York. 

The bill was passed by the House in a 228-206 vote on Nov. 5 and was sent to the president’s desk on Nov. 8, with 13 Republicans voting across the party line. The White House announced Biden will sign the bill into law during a ceremony on Monday. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., described the bill as a “once-in-a-generation” investment in New York’s infrastructure, which includes mass transit, passenger rail, highways, airports, water, electric vehicles and high-speed internet. 

The bill includes $25 billion funding to airports nationwide, with $937 million set aside for New York state. Of the $937 million, $27.3 million is specifically for Syracuse Hancock International Airport.

“Airport funding has been lagging well behind what is needed to cover present and future infrastructure needs at our nation’s airports,” said Jason Terreri, executive director of the Syracuse Regional Airport Authority, in a press release from the office of Rep. John Katko, R-Camillus. “This investment will help address this funding gap, and help SRAA meet the growing commercial passenger and cargo transportation needs of the region.”

Syracuse’s public transportation will also be affected from the passage of the infrastructure bill. After Centro suffered from driver shortage and a reduced bus schedule around the Syracuse University campus and in the city, the company will receive approximately $74 million over the next five years — $55.8 million will go to Syracuse and $18.2 million will go to Utica and Rome. 

The bill will provide $89.9 billion in total through new investments and reauthorization to guarantee funding for nationwide public transit in the next five years.

Katko, one of the 13 House Republicans who voted in favor of the bill, wrote a guest opinion in syracuse.com that he supports the bill because it specifically focuses on physical infrastructures that “will generate long-term economic growth.”

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“The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act makes meaningful and long overdue investments in central New York’s infrastructure and is a win for our entire community,” Katko wrote. 

The new investments from the bill will also ensure local hiring opportunities for construction projects — such as Syracuse’s Interstate 81 — through the Reconnecting Communities program. The bill includes $11.5 billion highway funding for New York state, as well as $7.5 billion in new funding for the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity program, which I-81 will be eligible for. 

“Local jobs, jobs, jobs are the top three reasons the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is great news for Syracuse and central New York,” Schumer said in a Thursday press release.

In 2019, the New York State Department of Transportation announced that it would recommend a plan to remove the I-81 viaduct and replace it with a community grid alternative of surface-level streets in the area. SU Chancellor Kent Syverud announced the university endorses the plan. Syracuse community members have advocated for more local hiring opportunities to reconnect the community that had been displaced by the construction of the viaduct decades ago. 

“The Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill will do more than invest in our nation’s crumbling roads and bridges – it will also help rebuild communities left behind by the failed federal policies of the past,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., in the same release. “We can begin to undo the legacy of past infrastructure projects that harmed underserved communities in Syracuse, Buffalo, and cities nationwide.”

The bill will also include the following: 

• $24 billion for roads and bridges in New York state 
• $8 billion for the Department of Transpiration’s Capital Investment Grants (CIG) Program, which benefits Bus Rapid Transit in Syracuse.
• $23 billion for Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds (SRF), which supports water infrastructure in central New York. 
• $42 billion for Broadband Deployment Grants to expand rural broadband and improve internet connectivity. 
• Funding for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to advance pending projects like those in Oswego, Little Sodus Bay, Greater Sodus Bay, and across Lake Ontario.

Published on November 14, 2021 at 11:51 pm

Contact Francis: btang05@syr.edu | @francis_towne