On March 14, the Biden administration, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Transit Administration (FTA), allocated $409.3 million in grants for seventy projects in thirty-nine states to modernize and electrify the nation’s buses and bus facilities.
The grants will help upgrade public transit in America and could potentially help dozens of communities buy new technology that reduces emissions.
“These grants will help people in communities large and small get to work, get to school, and access the services they need,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “Everyone deserves access to safe, reliable, clean, public transportation – and thanks to the President’s historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we are bringing modern buses to communities across America.”
Under the previous law, FTA received more than $2.5 billion in funding requests, five times the amount of funds available.
With the Biden administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, an additional $5.1 billion in formulas and competitive grant funding is authorized under the Grants for Buses and Bus Facilities Program over the next five years, which means more projects can be funded.
“Transit agencies are replacing aging buses and facilities with newer, cleaner infrastructure that is more efficient to operate and maintain,” said FTA Administrator Nuria Fernández. “Modern buses, especially those powered with electric batteries or fuel cells, improve air quality and help us address the climate crisis.”
One project being granted funding is the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), which will receive $15 million to build a new bus maintenance facility in Clayton County, Georgia.
Another project receiving funding will be Laketran in Lake County, Ohio, which was granted $14.7 million to expand a bus garage, modernize its main headquarters, and add operations and maintenance facilities.
Republican officials previously pushed back against the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, claiming it was a Trojan horse for social justice and green energy initiatives. House Republicans warned Buttigieg before the law’s passage that if the plan strayed from core transportation priorities to climate change policy, it would lose their support.
Representative Sam Graves, (R-Missouri) of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, commented, “A transportation bill needs to be a transportation bill, not a Green New Deal. It needs to be about roads and bridges.”