USDOT grants awarded to region
CSG East member jurisdictions were the recipients of various U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) competitive, discretionary grant awards in June 2020. Following is a snapshot of some of them.
Electric bus at Stanford Adobe Stock
Safety Data Initiative: USDOT awards grants under this program to help communities devise policies to reduce roadway fatalities to advance the agency’s efforts to develop, refine, and deploy safety tools that address specific roadway safety problems.
- Connecticut: $453,000 was awarded to the Connecticut Department of Transportation to develop a tool to improve the state’s behavioral safety decision-making by integrating crash and roadway information with data on citations, toxicology, and hospital injury data. It will also quantify the costs and benefits of behavioral safety countermeasures to inform decision-making.
- Maryland: $358,500 was awarded to the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration to develop and implement a data analytics and visualization dashboard using mobile device location data and electric scooter trip data available from the City of Baltimore to better understand pedestrian, bicycle, and electric scooter travel volumes and their exposure to risk.
- Massachusetts: $429,100 was awarded to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation to expand an existing crash data portal to help transportation practitioners identify higher risk roadways and risk factors to target roadway safety improvements and develop publicly available analytic tools and data visualizations.
Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (INFRA) Discretionary Grant Program: INFRA discretionary grants support infrastructure by creating opportunities for all levels of government and the private sector to fund infrastructure, use innovative approaches to improve the processes for building significant projects, and increase accountability for the projects that are built. The federal funding will improve major highways, bridges, ports, and railroads.
- Delaware: $56,807,160 was awarded to the Delaware Department of Transportation to construct a redesigned interchange at I-95 and State Route 896 in New Castle County.
- Maine: $38,146,500 was awarded to the Maine Department of Transportation to replace seven structurally deficient bridges and make related improvements in five locations in four counties.
- Rhode Island: $65,000,000 was awarded to the Rhode Island Department of Transportation to complete multiple safety and state of good repair improvements to the RI-246 corridor.
Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Planning Projects: The Federal Transit Administration’s Pilot Program for Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Planning assists communities that are developing new or expanded mass transit systems for comprehensive planning projects near public transportation that improve access, encourage ridership, and spur economic and mixed-use development.
- Pennsylvania: $682,500 was awarded to the Port Authority of Allegheny County to plan for TOD at stations in the segment of the Downtown-Uptown-Oakland-East End Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project that runs on the Martin Luther King, Jr. East Busway in the City of Pittsburgh and Wilkinsburg Borough.
Federal Transit Administration’s Mobility for All Pilot Program: FTA’s Mobility for All Pilot Program seeks to improve mobility options by employing innovative coordination of transportation strategies and building partnerships to enhance mobility and access to vital community services for older adults, individuals with disabilities, and people of low income.
- Massachusetts: $300,000 was awarded to the MetroWest Regional Transit Authority (MWRTA) to create new technology to expand transportation options for seniors and disadvantaged populations using an innovative micro-transit approach.
- Maryland: $40,000 was awarded to the Maryland Transit Administration on behalf of Bayside Community Network, Inc., a nonprofit human services agency in northeast Maryland, to hire a mobility manager who will increase transportation coordination for people with disabilities, offer solutions to fill transportation gaps, particularly for evenings/weekends, and increase independence for people with disabilities.
- Maine: $187,855 was awarded to the Maine Department of Transportation for a pilot project to expand on-demand bus service in Aroostook County, and the rural Presque Isle area for daily fixed route bus service. The project will use enhanced technology to fill gaps in service and improve access and mobility for older adults and individuals with disabilities in northern Maine.
Federal Transit Administration’s Low- or No-Emission (Low-No) Bus Program Projects: FTA’s Low- or No-Emission (Low-No) Grant program funds the deployment of transit buses and infrastructure for the purchase or lease of zero-emission and low-emission transit buses and supporting facilities. In this year’s competition, FTA focused on the introduction of new technology not commonly found within U.S. transit systems such as advancements to propulsion systems. Eligible projects include the purchase or lease of buses powered by modern, efficient technologies including hydrogen fuel cells, battery electric engines, and related infrastructure investments such as charging stations.
- Connecticut: $1,931,452 was awarded to the Connecticut Department of Transportation to purchase new electric buses to support the CTfastrak Bus Rapid Transit Service.
- Massachusetts: $1,100,000 was awarded to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and Martha’s Vineyard Transit Authority to purchase new electric buses and support charging infrastructure.
- Maryland: $2,949,750 was awarded to the Maryland Department of Transportation, Maryland Transit Administration, to purchase new electric buses and support charging infrastructure as it transitions to a zero-emission fleet.
- New Hampshire: $356,046 was awarded to the City of Nashua to purchase new hybrid electric vans to replace aging vehicles and related charging infrastructure.
- New Jersey: $7,074,310 was awarded to the New Jersey Transit Corporation to purchase new electric buses for service expansion purposes.
- New York: $1,501,444 was awarded to the Westchester County Department of Transportation to purchase electric buses and support infrastructure to replace aging diesel buses that have reached their useful life expectancy.
- Pennsylvania: $4,300,000 was awarded to the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) for infrastructure upgrades to support its current battery electric bus fleet at a maintenance facility in Philadelphia.
- Rhode Island: $5,076,000 was awarded to the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA) to purchase new electric buses to replace aging diesel buses that have reached their useful life expectancy.
- Vermont: $793,420 was awarded to the Vermont Agency of Transportation to purchase electric charging equipment and enhance its maintenance facilities to support electric vehicle charging equipment.
