Passenger and Freight Rail
Category overview
Programs that address passenger and freight rail offer funds to replace rail rolling stock, support freight projects of national or regional significance, increase railway safety, improve efficiency and reliability, and more.
Passenger and freight rail funds are disproportionately distributed to places without intercity passenger rail service. In addition, they are more likely to go to counties that experience disproportionate environmental or socioeconomic burden.
| Program | Total obligated funding (FY 2022–25) |
|---|---|
| Passenger and Freight Rail total funding | $19,358,143,876 |
| Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail (FSP) Grant Program | $17,011,898,309 |
| Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) Program | $2,004,531,813 |
| Railroad Crossing Elimination Grant Program | $341,713,754 |
Obligated funds are those that the federal government has promised to pay through a binding agreement, such as an official contract or purchase order.
Where Was Funding Distributed?
How Were Funds Distributed to Communities with the Greatest Needs?
Every community has different infrastructure needs. Those with worse infrastructure, poorer residents, or less local government staff capacity may need more funding to achieve the same results than areas with more resources. Here, we compare the amount of federal infrastructure funding obligated to different types of high-need communities.
Disadvantaged Counties
Disadvantaged counties, those that experience disproportionate environmental or socioeconomic burden, received 33.2 percent of total obligated funding, a higher share of passenger and freight rail funding compared with their share of the nation’s population (23.5 percent).
Persistent Poverty Counties
Counties where more than 20 percent of the population has lived in poverty for at least three decades received 11.9 percent of total obligated funding, a higher share of passenger and freight rail funding compared with their share of the nation’s population (5.5 percent).
Funding Across the Highest-Need Communities
Federal programs are meant to address communities’ infrastructure needs, but those programs may serve some needs better than others. Here, we compare several characteristics that can indicate a community’s level of need for the selected infrastructure category with the federal funding distributed to those communities. These comparisons can help stakeholders understand where federal funding meets community needs and where it may not.
We define highest-need communities as those that rank highest according to a given characteristic and cumulatively contain 25 percent of the US population. Based on their share of the population, we would expect these highest-need communities to receive 25 percent or more of all obligated funding.
Magnitude of Funding Received by Highest-Need Communities, Compared with Baseline Expectation (25 Percent)
| Characteristic | Funding magnitude |
|---|---|
| Higher share who are people of color | 2 times more |
| Higher ozone concentration | 1.5 times more |
| Lower transportation staff capacity | 1.2 times more |
| Higher intercity passenger rail prevalence | 0.9 times less |
| Higher poverty rate | 0.6 times less |
| Lower employment access index | 0.2 times less |
| Higher freight railroad prevalence | 0.2 times less |
| Lower median household income | 0.1 times less |
| Higher air pollution | 0.1 times less |
| Higher railroad crossing incident frequency | 0.1 times less |
How Were Funds Distributed by Community Characteristic?
For each infrastructure category, we analyzed how funding was distributed along different community characteristics. For counties and metropolitan areas, we show these funding distributions by quintiles, and for states, we show quartiles. For more information, refer to our user guide.
Average program funding per 1,000 residents
Share who are people of color by county
Explore Another Infrastructure Category
About
Update: This tool was updated on October 21, 2026 with a new data source for federal funding information, new fiscal years of data, new measures of community need, and new analysis pages by infrastructure category.
In this tool, we analyze 71 major federal infrastructure programs funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and annual appropriations (many programs were allocated funding through multiple laws). The funding data comes from USAspending.gov, which is standardized across federal agencies. Data in the initial tool release (2023) and prior update (2025) came from a combination of sources, including USAspending.gov, program fact sheets, and agency-level press releases and award announcements.
Demographic and need indicator data come from approximately 25 publicly available sources, including the 2016–20 American Community Survey five-year estimates from the US Census Bureau and data produced by other federal agencies.
To learn more about how to use this tool and how we’ve updated it over time, see our user guide.
Project Credits
This data tool was funded by a grant from the Melville Charitable Trust as part of our work in the Infrastructure Investments Hub. We are grateful to them and to all our funders, who make it possible for Urban to advance its mission. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Funders do not determine research findings or the insights and recommendations of our experts. More information on our funding principles is available here. Read our terms of service here.
- research Yonah Freemark, Amanda Hermans, Gabe Samuels, Tomi Rajninger, Sam Lieberman, Teddy Maginn, Mel Langness, and David Blount
- Design Brittney Spinner
- Development Mitchell Thorson
- Editing Lauren Lastowka
- Writing Wesley Jenkins
View the project on Github