Public Transportation
FTA Awards $1.4 Billion for Bus, Rail Transit Projects
The Federal Transit Administration has announced it is distributing nearly $1.4 billion to help finance five new projects—all bus rapid transit lines—and 11 existing rail and bus projects around the country.
The funding allotments, which FTA announced on April 9, draw on fiscal year 2018 and 2019 appropriations.
The five new bus rapid transit, or BRT, lines will share a total of $224.7 million in fiscal 2018 Capital Investment Grant funding.
A Portland, Ore., BRT project is receiving the largest of the new-project allocations, $87.4 million.
The other new BRT projects to receive funding are in Spokane, Wash., $53.4 million; Reno, Nev., $40.4 million; Albany, N.Y., $26.9 million; and Jacksonville, Fla., $16.6 million.
All five new BRT projects also still require FTA approval of a construction grant agreement.
Using the fiscal 2019 funds, FTA is dividing $935.7 million among nine rail projects. The largest single award is $150 million to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s Green Line extension.
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Four California rail projects, including three in Los Angeles, each will get $100 million.
The U.S. Dept. of Transportation has been criticized on Capitol Hill for not moving quickly enough in distributing the funds for the Capital Investment Grants to projects.
But DOT says that since the Trump administration took office in January 2017, it has announced funding for 22 new transit projects, which have received $5.1 billion in “funding commitments.”
