Erie International Airport will use $1.4M from new infrastructure bill for improvements

Erie International Airport will receive more than $1.4 million from the recently signed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

The Airport Infrastructure Grant is for the 2022 fiscal year, the office of U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-PA, announced Thursday morning. Erie is among 62 Pennsylvania airports that will share $70 million in funding from the grant.

The money will be used for a taxiway realignment, Executive Director Derek Martin said. It will be in addition to the airport's annual Airport Improvement Program funding from the federal government, which is also about $1.4 million.

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"We'll utilize these funds to do what's called a taxiway alpha realignment project," Martin said. "We hope to design it here and put it out to bid in the spring of 2022."

The project involves expanding the distance between the runway and taxiway to reduce the chance of airplanes to "clip one another," Martin said. It's what airports refer to as "separation," he said.

"The separation on the new part that was done when the airport expanded is correct," Martin said, "but as you continue from the east side of the airfield on the taxi lane heading westbound it bumps out to the south. And so we need to make that bump go back towards the north to be in proper alignment with the new requirements."

The Corry-Lawrence Airport in Corry will also receive $110,000.

More funding is expected to be directed to airports in the years to come, Casey's office said in a press release.

“Our commonwealth’s airports connect us to each other and the rest of the world,” Casey said in a statement. “These investments will help stimulate local economies and create jobs across Pennsylvania. I’m proud to say this is just the beginning of infrastructure funding coming to Pennsylvania — over the next few years, we can expect billions of dollars more that will strengthen our communities and our economy.”

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Contact Matthew Rink at mrink@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ETNrink.