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NORTHERN MINNESOTA — Significant funding will look to improve safety concerns around Northern Minnesota railroad crossing.

On Monday, Senator Amy Klobuchar and Senator Tina Smith announced that they were able to secure $1.8 million for providing a long-term multimodal freight solution that aims to improve safety, reliability, and efficiency along the CN rail corridor and the Midway Road (CSAH 13) corridor.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation’s Moorhead to Duluth Corridor Crossing Elimination and Improvement Study has also received $800,000 to study crossings along a 250-mile stretch of the BNSF Railway Northern Transcontinental Line within Minnesota.

Senator Klobuchar said the goal of the study is to evaluate conditions, identify alternatives, and improve the safety of traffic so that railway accidents are less of a concern.

“Of course some of our Duluth and northern Minnesota residents know exactly what crossings I’m talking about. But it’s just what we can do to make those safer, it isn’t really a one shot deal,” said Senator Klobuchar. “Sometimes a crossing needs better lighting, sometimes a crossing needs an underpass, sometimes it needs an overpass. But this has got to be part of our way of looking at transportation.”

This investment is made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Both Klobuchar and Smith has cosponsored the bipartisan Railway Safety Act which aims to improve rail safety protocols.