$1.15 Billion to Fix the Most Dangerous Intersections in America. Applications Close June 8.

Every day in the United States, trains collide with vehicles at grade crossings — the points where railroad tracks intersect roads at the same level, separated by nothing more than warning signals and the judgment of individual drivers. Since 2021, these crossings have produced more than 2,000 incidents and nearly 300 fatalities annually. The Federal Railroad Administration has data on every one of them: where it happened, what warning systems were in place, whether the crossing had gates or only flashers, whether the road was urban or rural, whether the victim was a driver, a pedestrian, or a passenger.

The data tells a consistent story. The crossings that kill people are, overwhelmingly, the ones that have been known to be dangerous for decades. Grade separations — bridges or underpasses that physically eliminate the point of conflict between road and rail — are the only engineering solution with a 100% effectiveness rate. A train cannot hit a car if they never share the same surface. But grade separations cost $5 million to $50 million each, and the United States has approximately 130,000 public at-grade crossings. The math has never worked at any funding level Congress has historically provided.

The Railroad Crossing Elimination program changes the arithmetic — not completely, but meaningfully. The Federal Railroad Administration published a combined FY2025-2026 Notice of Funding Opportunity on April 28, 2026, making up to $1,146,528,000 available for projects that eliminate, upgrade, or improve safety at highway-rail grade crossings. Applications are due June 8, 2026.

This is the only competitive federal discretionary grant program dedicated exclusively to railroad crossing safety. If your jurisdiction has a dangerous crossing and you are not applying, you should understand why.

What the Program Funds

The Railroad Crossing Elimination program supports four categories of projects, each addressing a different layer of the grade crossing safety problem.

Grade separations. The highest-impact investment: constructing bridges, underpasses, embankments, or tunnels that physically separate road and rail traffic. These projects eliminate the possibility of a collision at the crossing entirely. They are also the most expensive category, typically requiring multi-year construction timelines, environmental review, and coordination between railroad operators, state DOTs, and local governments. The program funds planning, environmental review, design, and construction — the full project lifecycle.

Crossing closures and track relocations. Where grade separation is not feasible or cost-effective, the program funds projects that eliminate crossings by closing them permanently and rerouting traffic to nearby grade-separated crossings, or by relocating tracks to remove the conflict point. Closures are politically difficult — they change traffic patterns and can affect property access — but they are the second most effective safety intervention after grade separation.

Warning system upgrades. Installing or upgrading signs, signals, gates, and other protective devices at crossings that currently lack adequate warning systems. The FRA's crossing inventory identifies thousands of crossings with passive warning only — a crossbuck sign and nothing else. Upgrading these to active warning systems with gates, flashers, and bells reduces collision rates by 75% to 90% depending on the specific technology and crossing geometry.

Safety improvements related to mobility. A broader category that includes technological solutions, sight-distance improvements, approach roadway modifications, and other engineering interventions that reduce risk at crossings without building a full grade separation. This category also covers quiet zones — areas where trains are not required to sound horns — which require compensatory safety measures at each affected crossing.

The program explicitly includes planning activities. Jurisdictions that have not yet completed environmental review or preliminary engineering can apply for planning grants to advance projects to the design stage, positioning them for construction funding in future rounds.

Who Can Apply

Eligible applicants include state governments, local governments (cities, counties, townships), political subdivisions, metropolitan planning organizations, federally recognized Indian tribes, and port authorities. Railroad carriers are not directly eligible but can participate as partners on applications submitted by eligible entities.

The program's structure recognizes that grade crossing projects almost always require cooperation between a public entity that controls the road and a private railroad that controls the tracks. Most successful applications demonstrate a partnership framework — often formalized through a memorandum of understanding — that establishes roles, cost responsibilities, and construction sequencing.

Transit agencies and Amtrak can also apply, broadening the pool beyond traditional highway-focused applicants. For communities where commuter rail or intercity passenger rail crosses local roads, this eligibility opens a pathway that the Federal Highway Administration's safety programs do not directly address.

The Rural and Tribal Set-Aside

At least 20% of program funding — approximately $230 million in this round — is reserved for projects located in rural communities or on tribal lands. This set-aside reflects the disproportionate risk profile of rural crossings: lower traffic volumes mean less political urgency for upgrades, but higher approach speeds and longer sight-distance constraints produce fatality rates per crossing that significantly exceed urban averages.

Rural crossings are also more likely to have passive-only warning systems. A 2023 FRA analysis found that approximately 45% of crossings in rural areas lack active warning devices — gates, flashers, or signals — compared to roughly 15% in urban areas. The set-aside directs funding toward the crossings where the gap between current protection and available technology is widest.

Approximately $38 million is specifically allocated for planning grants, enabling communities that have not yet begun the engineering and environmental review process to develop project applications for future construction funding rounds. For rural jurisdictions and tribal governments that may lack the staff capacity to complete NEPA documentation or preliminary engineering in-house, the planning set-aside is the entry point to the program.

How Applications Are Evaluated

FRA evaluates applications using a merit-based framework weighted across several criteria. While the exact scoring breakdown is published in the NOFO, the program's track record and FRA guidance emphasize several factors that consistently separate competitive applications from unsuccessful ones.

Safety impact. The primary criterion. Applications must quantify the safety problem at the crossing — crash history, near-miss data, traffic volumes, train frequencies, approach speeds, sight distance, and warning system adequacy. FRA maintains the Web Accident/Incident Prediction System that generates risk scores for every public crossing in the country. Applications that reference WBAPS data and supplement it with local crash records are significantly more competitive than those that rely on narrative descriptions of danger.

Project readiness. FRA prioritizes projects that can move to construction within a reasonable timeframe. Applications with completed environmental review, 30% or greater design, and executed partnership agreements score substantially higher than concept-stage proposals. The program funds planning, but construction-ready projects have historically captured the majority of awards.

Benefit-cost analysis. Applicants must demonstrate that the safety benefits of the proposed project — measured in avoided fatalities, injuries, property damage, and delay costs — exceed the federal investment. FRA provides a benefit-cost analysis template, and applications that use it rigorously outperform those that estimate benefits qualitatively.

Community impact. The program considers how crossings affect emergency response times, school bus routes, freight mobility, and community connectivity. Blocked crossings — where stopped or slow-moving trains prevent road traffic from crossing for extended periods — are a particular concern in communities where the railroad bisects residential areas from hospitals, fire stations, or schools.

What Makes a Strong Application

Having reviewed three previous rounds of RCE awards, several patterns emerge.

Data density wins. The strongest applications treat the crossing like a patient file — every relevant metric documented, every incident recorded, every risk factor quantified. FRA reviewers are engineers, not storytellers. They respond to evidence.

Partnership depth matters. A letter of support from the railroad is necessary but insufficient. Competitive applications include executed agreements that specify the railroad's contribution to construction costs, right-of-way access, and maintenance responsibilities post-construction. The railroad's willingness to share costs signals project viability.

Match funding strengthens competitiveness. While the program does not impose a strict cost-share requirement for all project types, applications that demonstrate committed local or state matching funds consistently outperform those requesting 100% federal funding. State DOT participation — either through direct funding or in-kind engineering support — is a strong positive signal.

Bundled crossings outperform single sites. Applications that address multiple crossings along a corridor, rather than a single isolated crossing, demonstrate systemic thinking and typically score higher on both safety impact and cost-effectiveness metrics. A corridor approach also aligns with how railroads and state DOTs actually plan infrastructure investments.

The Deadline Reality

Applications are due no later than 11:59 PM Eastern Time on June 8, 2026. That is 31 days from today.

For jurisdictions that have already completed planning and environmental review, this timeline is workable. For those starting from scratch, it is not — but the planning grant category exists precisely for this scenario. A planning application requires significantly less technical documentation than a construction application and can position a project for the next funding round.

FRA accepts applications through Grants.gov. Required registrations — SAM.gov, Grants.gov, and UEI — can take 2-4 weeks to process for first-time applicants. If your organization is not already registered, the administrative timeline is the binding constraint, not the technical work.

Why This Program Matters Now

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act authorized the Railroad Crossing Elimination program at $600 million per year through FY2026. This combined FY2025-2026 solicitation represents approximately two years of funding in a single round — a consolidation that reflects both the program's administrative capacity and the backlog of meritorious projects from previous cycles.

After FY2026, the program's authorization expires unless Congress reauthorizes it in a new surface transportation bill. The political dynamics of the next reauthorization are uncertain. Transportation funding has historically been bipartisan, but the current fiscal environment — with reconciliation consuming congressional bandwidth and infrastructure spending under scrutiny — creates risk that crossing safety funding could be reduced or restructured.

The current round may be the largest pool of dedicated crossing safety funding available for several years. For jurisdictions that have dangerous crossings, completed or nearly completed plans, and the organizational capacity to assemble a competitive application in 31 days, the window is open.

For communities earlier in the pipeline, a planning application now sets up a construction application whenever the next round opens — and demonstrates to FRA that the project has local commitment and momentum.

More than 300 Americans die at railroad crossings every year. The engineering solutions exist. The funding exists. What remains is the application.

Granted tracks FRA and DOT grant opportunities across all surface transportation programs. For help identifying whether your jurisdiction's crossings are eligible, search the FRA crossing inventory by state and county.