The Colorado DOT (CDOT) is awarding nearly $14 million in grant funding for alternative fuel buses to serve transit systems across the state.
According to a report from Mass Transit, the funding was made available following the Volkswagen Settlement Trust, which is providing the state with a sum of $68 million after a settlement against the auto manufacturer for vehicle emissions violations was resolved.
How Colorado will use the settlement funds is outlined in The Beneficiary Mitigation Plan (BMP), led by CDOT in partnership with Colorado Department of Public Health, the Colorado Energy Office and the Regional Air Quality Council.
Approximately $14 million from the settlement funds will be awarded to six transit agencies through the first year of CDOT’s Division of Transit & Rail’s Settlement Alt-fuel Bus Replacement Program. This program incentivizes the replacement of conventional fuel buses with alternative fuel buses. Four of the six transit agencies will be implementing zero-emissions, electric bus fleets for the first time. In total, the funding will help to remove 28 aging diesel-powered buses from state roads. The transit vehicles will be replaced by one natural gas bus, three propane buses and 24 zero-emission battery-powered buses.
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Source: Mass Transit
