USDOT announces $10 million grant for Jeffersonville port

JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. (AP) - The U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded the Port of Indiana-Jeffersonville a $10 million grant to enhance and expand its infrastructure.

The grant will provide partial funding for $17 million in infrastructure enhancements that will add nearly four miles to the Ohio River port's existing 11-mile rail network. A new rail yard will also be added, as will two new rail loops.

Gov. Mike Pence said the work will provide Indiana businesses with more efficient access to the U.S. inland waterway system and global markets. Indiana's three ports contribute over $6 billion per year to the state economy and support 50,000 Hoosier jobs.

The Jeffersonville port was one of 39 entities to receive a Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grant out of 627 applicants, the News and Tribune (http://bit.ly/1Mt98lD ) reports. The grant was the only one awarded in Indiana.

Port director Scott Stewart said the infrastructure enhancements depended on receiving the grant. He said it'll take a few years for work to be done, and that officials would have a good idea of a "working timetable" by the end of this year.

The region also has other transportation improvements with the $2.2 billion Ohio River bridges project and a $30.4 million heavy-haul road in Clark County.

"It's all of the things connected together," U.S. Maritime Administrator Chip Jaenichen said. "This is a piece of it, but it's all of the transportation infrastructure projects that are going on in this area that actually make it so attractive because it builds on the synergy of all the work that's being done."

The project would double the port's capacity to handle freight. It set a set a shipping record in 2014 that was 48 percent higher than a year earlier, and exceeded 2 million tons for the first time since opening in 1985.

In the first quarter of 2015, the port logged its highest quarterly freight volume. Port operations support more than 11,000 jobs.