On October 1st, 2026 the Niskanen Center submitted comments to the Department of Transportation on the agency’s new America’s Great Corridors of Commerce (AGCC) initiative, which would designate stretches of highway and railway right-of-way (ROW) where transmission, broadband, and water infrastructure could be co-located and permitted faster.
Co-locating new transmission infrastructure in already-developed ROW could help shorten timelines for deployment at a moment when America’s electricity demand is rising faster than the current grid can accommodate. But there are practical barriers DOT will need to consider to be successful. Agencies that oversee ROW aren’t always the ones that oversee utilities, which can create mismatches in safety standards and timelines. Using the ROW as AGCC envisions will also require significant engineering analysis of the existing infrastructure and surrounding conditions, and siting transmission underground could be costly, with those costs ultimately borne by consumers. Our comment addresses each of these in detail.
