Federal Transit Administration (FTA) announced the availability of $212.3 million under the Public Transportation Emergency Relief Program to transit agencies to help them recover from major declared disasters in 2017 and 2020-2022. To receive funding, transit agencies must have eligible expenses resulting from an event for which the President declared a major disaster within those timeframes. FTA’s Emergency Relief program enables FTA to provide assistance to public transit operators in the aftermath of an emergency or major disaster. The program helps states and public transportation systems: pay for repairing and/or replacing equipment and facilities that have suffered serious damage as a result of an emergency, including natural disasters such as floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes; undertake capital projects to repair or replace facilities or equipment that have suffered serious damage as a result of an emergency; and support the costs of evacuation, rescue operations, temporary public transportation service, and reestablishing, expanding, or relocating service before, during or after an emergency.
The eligible agencies are listed here:
Public transportation agencies, States, territories, local governmental authorities, Indian tribes, and other FTA grant recipients that provide or fund public transportation service are eligible for Emergency Relief funding under the program. To be considered eligible to apply for the funding described in this NAERF, such entities must provide or fund public transportation services in counties designated as eligible for any category of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Public Assistance for a major declared disaster with an incident period partially or entirely occurring within calendar years 2017, 2020, 2021, or 2022. Costs related to the COVID-19 pandemic are not eligible for this funding.
Instructions for applying and eligibility information can be found on and in GRANTS.GOV (FTA-2023-009-TPM-ER). Complete proposals must be submitted electronically through the GRANTS.GOV “APPLY” function by May 26, 2023.