INVEST IN AMERICA: Biden-Harris administration announces $22 million for transportation improvements in Yellowstone National Park

Date of press release: June 18, 2024

Contact: Yellowstone National Park: Morgan Warthin, (307) 344-2015

Contact: Federal Highway Administration, (202) 366-0660

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. – The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) today announced a $22 million grant to the Department of the Interior’s National Park Service to upgrade and reconstruct a 0.7-mile segment of the highway Norris-Golden Gate in Yellowstone National Park. The road provides a critical transportation link to Yellowstone’s major destinations and the millions of people who visit the park each year as well as local residents and surrounding communities. The project will significantly improve the exceptionally difficult and demanding roadway to improve pedestrian safety and access, mitigate rockfall hazards, improve vehicle pullouts and parking areas, and add new pedestrian facilities to separate people from traffic.

“Good transportation is essential to experiencing the great outdoors of Yellowstone National Park,” said US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “The grant to the National Park Service will make travel more convenient for tourists, residents, workers and local businesses.”

“The funding announced today is the latest in a multitude of collaborations undertaken as part of our decades-spanning partnership with the National Park Service,” said Shailen Bhatt, Federal Highway Administrator. “This partnership helps make visits to Yellowstone and the nation’s 428 other national parks safer, more enjoyable and more convenient for years to come.” We are excited to work with the National Park Service to improve access to and from this national treasure by providing a safer, more modern and reliable travel experience.

Tourism is the key driver of the economy in and around Yellowstone National Park. In 2021, more than 4.9* million people visited the park and spent more than $630 million in communities near the park, according to the National Park Service. This spending supported approximately 8,740 jobs in the region and generated a cumulative benefit to the local economy of more than $834 million. Improved transport on the Norris-Golden Gate route will help increase tourism and provide a higher quality tourism experience, promoting sustainable economic competitiveness for the entire rural region.

“As we continue to experience record numbers of visits to public lands across the country, now is the time to make long overdue investments,” said Joan Mooney, Department of the Interior Principal Undersecretary for Policy, Management and Budget. “Through the President’s Investing in America agenda, we continue to address critical infrastructure needs in some of the nation’s most iconic public areas. »

“We are proud of our relationship with the Federal Highway Administration,” said Cam Sholly, Yellowstone National Park Superintendent. “Whether it’s helping us reopen the park after the major flood of 2022 or helping us make hundreds of millions of dollars in new infrastructure investments across Yellowstone, the Federal Highway Administration continues to ‘be an essential partner.

The Yellowstone National Park project is one of five national projects receiving a total of $88.2 million in FY 2023 funding under the FHWA program. Nationally Significant Federal Lands and Tribal Transportation Projects Program. The FHWA also today announced $20.5 million in Tribal Transportation Program Security Fund (TTPSF) grants for 80 projects. The full list of grant recipients can be found at Tribal Transportation Program Safety Fund.

The President’s bipartisan infrastructure law provides up to $355 million annually for federal lands and tribal projects of national significance for fiscal years 2022 through 2026. The law also modifies the program by requiring that half of all funding be dedicated to projects on tribal communities and increases the federal share of projects on tribal transportation facilities to 100 percent.

In the coming weeks, FHWA plans to make additional funds available through the Federal Lands Program and Tribal Projects of National Significance through a Notice of Funding Opportunity. For updates on this and other future funding opportunities, please join the Office of Tribal Transportation mailing list.

To further assist the 574 federally recognized tribes and their transportation priorities, the FHWA has developed a Transportation Funding Opportunities Guide for Tribal Nations that provides information on new highway programs created under the bipartisan legislation on infrastructure as well as existing highway and bridge financing programs.

Editor’s Note: Photos and more from today’s announcement are available.

*See Yellowstone Visitation Statistics 2021 for an explanation of visitation in 2021. In 2023, there were 4.5 million visits to Yellowstone. The economic impact of tourism in Yellowstone for 2023 will be released later this summer.