City of Lawrence

Public Transit

 

TO:

Dave Corliss, City Manager

 

FROM:

Cliff Galante, Public Transit Administrator

 

CC:

Debbie Van Saun, Assistant City Manager

 

Date:

August 21, 2007

 

RE:

Status of FY07 Transit Earmark Grant Application Submittal to the Federal Transit Administration.

 

Staff received notification from the Deputy Administrator for the Federal Transit Administration’s Region VII office in Kansas City regarding the status of available Fiscal Year 2007 Bus and Bus Facilities Discretionary Program Grant funds where the City of Lawrence Transit System submitted application to address fleet replacement needs.  Staff was notified that the City of Lawrence would not be awarded any available FY07 Bus and Bus Facility discretionary funding.

 

According to the FTA Region VII Deputy Administrator, the U.S. Department of Transportation formally announced on August 14, 2007 that five major metropolitan areas would split almost $850 million in discretionary highway and transit money for fiscal year 2007 under DOT’s new Urban Partnership Agreements.  Those communities are Miami ($62.9M); Minneapolis ($133.3M); New York City ($354.5M); San Francisco ($158.7M); and Seattle ($138.7M). 

 

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters indicated in a press release that “These communities have committed to fighting congestion now.  Our commitment was to allocate the federal contribution in a lump sum, not in bits and pieces over several years – an approach meant to get these projects off the drawing board and into action.” 

 

In addition, the DOT announced that $35 million in discretionary Bus and Bus Facility funds has been awarded to various Gulf Coast communities impacted by Hurricane Katrina to address capital needs for public transportation.

 

 

Background:

 

Discretionary grant funds were available due to the FY2007 appropriations process not being completed, caused by the election changes in Congress. Specifically, during the past election, Congressional Republicans relinquished control with out first completing the FY2007 appropriations process.  The Democrats that replaced them decided to finish out FY2007 under a continuing resolution that contained no earmarks.  This then freed up over $750M in highway and bus money for FY2007 – amounts given to program that are by statute “discretionary” (projects to be selected at the discretion of DOT subject statutory guidelines) but which by recent tradition have been entirely earmarked by Congressional appropriators.     

 

In past years when the appropriators failed to earmark all of the discretionary money, DOT tended to give the money to states and localities on a program-by-program basis without any consistent theme linking the various discretionary programs together.  The money was then dispersed fairly widely.  Historically, when appropriators earmarked the money, they usually spread it even more widely, for more but smaller projects. 

 

On March 23, 2007, FTA provided notice that $413,291,121 in FY2007 funds was available for discretionary allocation.  In addition, a balance of $24,843,251 of FY2006 Bus and Bus Facilities program funding that was not allocated to specific projects in the FY2006 appropriations legislation was also available for discretionary award in FY2007, for a total of $438,184,372.

 

FTA then invited applications on how best to spend the discretionary funds that would be made available under the discretionary Bus and Bus Facilities Program, authorized by 49 U.S.C. 5309.

The Bus and Bus Facilities Program makes funds available to public transit providers to finance capital projects to replace, rehabilitate, and purchase buses and related equipment and to construct bus-related facilities, including programs bus and bus-related projects for assistance to sub-recipients that are public agencies, private companies engaged in public transportation, or private non-profit organizations.

 

Complete proposals for the discretionary Bus and Bus Facilities Program grants had to be submitted by May 22, 2007.

 

FTA indicated that special consideration would be given to applications that addressed the following priority areas:

·         Fleet replacement needs that cannot be met with formula funds.

·         Fleet expansion that allows significant service increase and/or improvements and/or operating efficiencies.

·         Facility construction or renovation to support increased service or introduction of clean fuels.

·         Strategic investments in rural areas where formula funding is inadequate.

·         Purchase of clean fuel vehicles.

·         Intermodal terminal projects that include intercity bus providers.

·         Gulf Coast Recovery- capital to support bus and bus facilities replacement and expansion related to the impacts of the 2005 Hurricanes.

 

Upon receiving City Commission approval, staff submitted an application to FTA for consideration to address fleet replacement needs.  Since the application deadline, staff had been awaiting notice on if the City of Lawrence Transit System would be awarded any funding.

 

Staff has not received formal notice in writing, but based on the information received from the FTA Regional Deputy Administrator it is likely that the City of Lawrence Transit System will not be awarded any funding.  It appears that the DOT had a shift in thinking on how best to allocate these available funds that have historically been more widely spread among various communities throughout the nation.