Bristol East junction is to be upgraded as part of Boris Johnson's plans to "level up" transport investment in the regions following his election victory.
The Prime Minister name-checked the junction that lies just outside Bristol Temple Meads station, describing it as a "major pinch point" for congestion in the South West's railway network.
Outlining plans to invest in transport projects outside of London, Mr Johnson said: "Further south, I can today announce that we will be upgrading the Bristol East junction – a major pinch point in the rail network of the South West that limits access to the Brunel-designed Victorian splendour of Bristol Temple Meads station."
The investment in regional projects came as Mr Johnson gave the controversial rail link HS2 the green light - despite the vociferous objections of some on his own benches.
The development of Bristol East junction has long been a rallying call for leaders desperate to upgrade the city's creaking transport system.
Last year, the then transport secretary Chris Grayling announced his support for revamping the junction when he met West of England mayor Tim Bowles on a visit to Bristol.
A revamped Bristol East junction would allow more trains to access the station and help prevent delays when more frequent services start running under the MetroWest project, which is still being drawn up.
Under the MetroWest plans, there would be half-hourly services on the Severn Beach to Bath Spa and Westbury lines, half-hourly services to Yate and beyond to Gloucester, and hourly services on the reopened Henbury line.
There are also proposals to open new train stations in Portishead, Henbury, Portway, North Filton, Ashley Down and Charfield.
The good news for Bristol came as the Prime Minister revealed plans for transport projects across the country, placing a particular emphasis on improved bus services and cycle links, for which £5bn of funding will be made available.
Addressing MPs in the House of Commons, Mr Johnson described how Transport for London in the capital had brought "hope and opportunity and job prospects to people growing up in every part of the city and beyond" and that he wanted transport infrastructure to do the same for the rest of the country.
"It is the ambition of this government to employ that same utensil - fantastic transport infrastructure - to unite and level up across the whole country and of course there is far more to do in London - and the present mayor frankly needs to be shaken out of his complacency - but there is even more to do across the nation as a whole.
"Whether you are stuck in a jam on the A303 or on the outskirts of Lincoln; whether you are trying to get from Warrington to Manchester or toiling across the Pennines by rail, you know that this country is being held back by our inadequate infrastructure."
He said more than 4,000, "zero carbon British-built buses" would be put on the roads of "Ashfield, Barnstaple, Southampton, Manchester and many more towns and cities besides" and that there would be more services, including in the evenings and at weekends.
While there was no explicit mention of Bristol's buses in the PM's speech, every region outside London, including the South West, has been promised investment in bus services.
Mr Johnson also did not mention the reopening of the Portishead railway line while reeling off a list of railway lines and stations that would open in the north, such as the Fleetwood Line in Lancashire and Ashington-Blyth rail line in the North East.
However, more details are expected to be released when the chancellor, Bristol-raised Sajid Javid, releases the budget next month.
Outgoing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn accused the Tories of "taking its ideas from the Labour Party, adopting much of our language but falling a very long way short on the substance".
"This is a government that is unwilling to make the scale of investment needed to revive the parts of our country that have been decimated by successive Conservative governments," he said.
"Today’s piecemeal announcements don’t add up to a serious plan to rebalance the economy or tackle the climate emergency. They don’t even come close to repairing the damage done by a decade of Conservative rule.
"The Prime Minister laments our inadequate infrastructure, yet it’s his party that has been starving the country of investment for the last 10 years resulting in the worst regional inequality in Europe.
"Yet today the Prime Minister is selling his announcements as a prize for parts of the Midlands and the North. I tell him: people in those regions, to whom he promised so much in the general election, are going to be sorely disappointed."
