Railroad Rehabilitation Loans

Snohomish River and Historic First Street

The RRIF program was established by the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) and amended by the Safe Accountable, Flexible and Efficient Transportation Equity Act: a Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU). Under this program the FRA Administrator is authorized to provide direct loans and loan guarantees up to $35.0 billion. Up to $7.0 billion is reserved for projects benefiting freight railroads other than Class I carriers.

The funding may be used to:

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) will approve or disapprove a request for a loan within 90 days after receipt of a complete application. Applications will be deemed complete after the following:

(1) The FRA has fulfilled its obligations under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and related laws, regulations and orders. In many cases, the FRA will need simply to approve a short environmental form submitted with the application. However, in some cases, compliance with NEPA may require preparation of detailed environmental assessments, consultation with Federal and State authorities, publication of documents, and public review and comment on these documents.

(2) The FRA has completed its initial review of the application (not to exceed 30 days) and, if additional information and/or clarification have been requested, the applicant has provided the requested information.

Note: Since a great variety of projects are eligible to be funded under the RRIF Program, it is impossible to anticipate all the information that will be necessary to evaluate a project for which funding is requested, or the level of detail that will be provided by an applicant. Therefore, a short period of time will be necessary to review applications and determine if there is a need for additional information.