State DOT Secretary Gene Conti is mentioned in Governing Magazine's list of potential candidates to run the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“I’m very honored to be on the list of so many prominent transportation leaders,” Conti said Friday. “It’s a nice recognition of the work we’ve done in the last four years in North Carolina.”

Conti was en route to his home town, Pittsburgh, for the annual meeting of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, where he will receive the group’s highest award this weekend. The Thomas H. McDonald Award recognizes a career of service in transportation and highway engineering.

He said the mention of his name for U.S. transportation secretary was “all speculation,” but he did not dismiss the possibility. ... [MORE]

Joseph Szabo, the head of the Federal Railroad Administration, visited Raleigh's warehouse district this morning to announce an additional $22.3 million in federal funds that will complete the cost of a a $60 million replacement for Raleigh's outmoded, dinky Amtrak station. [2pm update: see Matt Garfield's story from today's announcement.]

It's not new money.  There is $15.1 million that was part of $545 million in federal stimulus (ARRA) money for fast-train improvements, announced in 2010.  The $15.1 million was a small part of that big package that was not designated in advance for a particular project.  And another $6.7 million (not mentioned by Szabo today) that had been marked for track improvements in that same original $545 million package.

This money is added to a $21 million federal TIGER grant -- which WAS new money -- that Raleigh won in June. Plus $466,000 announced today, to help with preliminary engineering costs. ... [MORE]

Ray LaHood, the U.S. transportation secretary, said today that North Carolina will receive $23 million to repair roads and bridges that were damaged in August by Hurricane Irene. [1/10/12 update: NCDOT says this figure covers money North Carolina already has received to pay for Irene repairs.]

In all, USDOT will distribute $1.58 billion to help 30 states with transportation expenses related to damage from natural disasters in 2011.  

Georgia received $4.1 million and the District of Columbia received $2.9 million in federal grants to advance work on the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor through Virginia and North Carolina, the U.S. Department of Transportation said today.

Georgia will use the money for a service development plan and environmental study on a 250-mile passenger rail corridor between Atlanta and Charlotte. The District of Columbia will use its grant to study renovating or replacing the 100-year-old Long Bridge over the Potomac River, which carries 90 passenger and freight trains daily.

Nearly $581 million in federal grants have been awarded, mostly in North Carolina, for work on the corridor.  North Carolina recently received a $4 million grant to complete environmental and design work on a new track between Raleigh and Richmond that could cut travel times by 90 minutes.

Ray LaHood, the US transportation secretary, announced  approval today of more federal stimulus funds for transit improvements in the Triangle:

$4 million for Raleigh to help start building a bus operations and maintenance center for Capital Area Transit, and

$900,000 for Triangle Transit to buy a van and three 40-foot buses.

Raleigh and Triangle Transit were among the recipients of additional stimulus grants announced in July.