Port of New Orleans gets $16.7M grant for rail yard

The Port of New Orleans has received a $16.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to rebuild and relocate a specialized rail yard near the Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal. The funding is part of the Department’s Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grants program, or TIGER. The Mississippi River Intermodal Terminal and Yard Improvements project will transform an existing 12-acre rail yard into a modern, freight rail intermodal terminal and create a four-acre cargo marshalling yard immediately adjacent. The overall cost of the project is estimated at $26.1 million, with the remaining $7.6 million coming from the Port of New Orleans and the Louisiana Port Construction and Development Priority Program. The new terminal is expected to create 284 construction jobs and 100 permanent marine and cargo handling jobs. The project will also create hundreds of jobs and will improve the movement of marine and rail cargo at the Port of New Orleans, Mayor Mitch Landrieu says. On Dec. 15, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced 46 winning projects would share $511 million from the third round of the TIGER program. The port’s grant was the ninth largest of the 46 projects and was one of four successful port-related infrastructure projects. In all, DOT received 848 project applications requesting a total of $14.29 billion. Construction at the port is expected to begin in 2012. Read the rest of the 10/12 Corridor Weekly newsletter here.