Yesterday, the U.S Department of Transportation's (USDOT) Federal Transit Administration (FTA) announced that $102.3 million would be going to 17 transit agencies, cities, and planning councils to help efforts in recovering from natural disasters. The funding comes from the FTA's Public Transportation Emergency Relief (ER) Program, and will help them repair damaged equipment and facilities and recoup costs for evacuation and rescue operations following floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes that occurred in 2017 and 2020-22.
"As climate change accelerates, we are seeing floods, hurricanes, and wildfires that used to be once-in-a-century events coming every few months and causing greater damage to our lives, communities, and infrastructure," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Some of the awards given by the FTA will be:
- $1.2 million will go to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority to repair damage from storms and flooding, as well as preventing falling rock damage;
- $25 million will go to the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority to rehabilitate its 57th Street substation, which was damaged during Hurricane Ida in 2021;
- $618,570 will go to Texas to help transit agencies, cities and regional planning councils in Austin, Corpus Christi, San Angelo, and North Central Texas for emergency services in the winter storm of 2021.
FTA's Emergency Relief Program provides assistance to public transit operators in the aftermath of a declared emergency or major disaster. The program helps states and public transportation systems pay for repairing and replacing equipment and facilities that have suffered serious damage as a result of an emergency, cover the costs of evacuation, rescue operations, and temporary public transportation service and, reestablish, expand, or relocate service before, during or after an emergency.
"Americans cannot stop their lives because a disaster damages their transit systems," said FTA Administrator Nuria Fernandez. "We know it is critical to fund recovery efforts for these systems, so they can keep taking Americans to work, to school, to doctors’ appointments, and for all the other important journeys that transit provides."
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Source: USDOT
