MTA to compete for share of $775 million
The Maryland Transit Administration plans to put in a bid for a share of a $775 million grant program announced today by the U.S. Department of Transportation for bus systems around the country.
Henry Kay, the MTA's deputy administrator for planning, said the MTA will compete aggressively for a grant under the Federal Transit Administration program. He said the program can be used to finance either bus acquisition, improvements in bus maintenance facilities or transit planning.
Kay said that while no decision has been made about the nature of the MTA's grant request, the agency is likely to seek money to improve its facilities for maintaining the growing number of hybrid diesel-electric buses in its fleet.
Kay said that when a transit agency competes for such grants, it's important to scale the request to the overall level of the program. Thus, a $100 million project such as the replacement of the Kirk Division -- a big item on the MTA's long-term wish list -- would probably be too much to propose.
"We have to look at what we have ready to go and what we can move quickly on," Kay said.
The MTA official predicted that competition for funds will be more intense than for rail projects because "everybody has buses."
"Everybody and his brother is going to be applying for this money," Kay said.
The FTA said it will judge transit agencies' proposals based on how well they address the issue of keeping their systems in good repair. The deadline for applications is June 18, and awards are expected to be announced in late summer.
Comments
Mr Dresser, the Baltimore City Council Hearing on Bicycle Legislation is this Thursday at 4 pm. It will touch on 4 bills:
09-0429 Required Parking for Bicycles
09-0430 Fines for Parking/Stopping in Bike Lanes
09-0431 Bike-Safe Grates
09-0433 Street and Transportation Projects - Complete Streets
There is currently a petition out measuring support for these bills at: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/853575826
If you could help spread the word it would be greatly appreciated
Posted by: Matt | May 4, 2010 6:01 PM
It would be great to have an honest MTA. Right now just before 10am the homepage says that everything is fine with MARC. But if you look at MARC tracker you will see one train that is 10 minutes late and another that is 21 minutes late. This morning I received at least 6 emails alerting me to delays but the homepage never bothered to record disruptions.
Add in that the trip planner on their page is busted again (though working on Google; looks like a coding error on their part) and you you yet another example of them failing.
Posted by: melissa schober | May 5, 2010 10:01 AM