Feds Award $2.2B in Grants to Local Transit Agencies
An MTA bus drives along 42nd Street as the sun rises on November 18, 2021, in New York City. Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images
The money is meant to help with payroll and other day-to-day costs, as some bus and subway operators continue to struggle with ridership declines.
The Biden administration handed out $2.2 billion to support the day-to-day operations of transit agencies in 18 states Monday, giving a much needed helping hand to bus and subway operators that have struggled to find revenue during the pandemic.
“This additional funding from the American Rescue Plan is helping communities across the country keep transit workers on the job and keep their trains and buses running,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in a prepared statement.
Ridership for many agencies plummeted when the pandemic first struck two years ago, and it still has not recovered. Transit agencies have received several rounds of financial aid from Congress, including through other parts of the American Rescue Plan Act that passed when President Joe Biden first took office.
But those have been temporary respites, as a number of transit agencies face a “fiscal cliff” once those funds run out.
The grants announced by the Biden administration Monday won’t solve those larger looming issues, but they are designed to cushion the financial blow.
The money is going to agencies that “demonstrated a need for additional financial support to cover expenses related to day-to-day operations, cleaning and sanitization, combating the spread of pathogens on transit systems, and retaining employees,” the Federal Transit Administration wrote in its announcement.
Grants for transit agencies included:
- $769 million for New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority
- $270 million for the San Francisco region’s Bay Area Regional Transportation agency
- $137 million for the Houston area’s Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County
- $120 million for the Washington Metro system
- $118 million for the Chicago Transit Authority
- $96 million for the Philadelphia area’s Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority
- $62 million for the Cincinnati area’s Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority
- $53 million for the Denver area’s Regional Transportation District.
Several cities secured money as well. San Francisco got the largest amount of any city, with $115 million. Honolulu brought in $21 million and Milwaukee $6.2 million.
Smaller entities – such as Fayetteville, North Carolina and Bismarck, North Dakota – secured funding, as well. The Oneida Nation in Wisconsin and the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians in Minnesota were also among the successful applicants.
Daniel C. Vock is a senior reporter at Route Fifty and is based in Washington, D.C.
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