Building Much Needed Rail Grade Separations Act of 2021

This bill establishes a grade separation investment program to award competitive grants to certain entities for projects that

• separate railway-highway grade crossings,
• improve safety by reducing the number of deaths and injuries at rail-highway crossings,
• increase the efficiency and reliability of the movement of people and freight over rail-highway crossings,
• increase the capacity of the freight and passenger rail system,
• reduce the amount of noise from trains, and
• improve air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from less idling at rail-highway crossings.

Among other requirements, the bill (1) requires grant awards for large projects (projects with total costs of greater than $100 million) to be at least $50 million, and for any other projects not less than $2.5 million; and (2) directs the Department of Transportation to consider a number of factors in awarding grants, including accident history at the rail-highway crossing over the last 10 years, the annual average daily motor vehicle, cyclist, and pedestrian traffic at the crossing, the likelihood of a collision based on the geometry of the crossing, and the number of critical facilities near the crossing.