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The South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA) recently landed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds to bolster its motive power fleet, while the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) and Metra obtained stimulus dollars to bolster security.

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) provided $13.5 million in ARRA funds to SFRTA to purchase three new locomotives. Earlier this month, the authority received $2.5 million in stimulus dollars through the Urbanized Area Formula Funds to purchase one locomotive.

SFRTA also plans to buy 10 new cab cars and four new trailer cars. The purchase will be funded by the FTA, Florida Department of Transportation, and Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.  

Meanwhile, SEPTA obtained $4.5 million in ARRA funds to add 12 officers to its police force and purchase new anti-terrorism equipment. The number of law enforcement officers in the SEPTA Transit Police Department will increase from 256 to 268.

SEPTA is one of 15 transit agencies that will receive a total of $78 million form the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) via the ARRA’s Transit Security Grant Program.

“The addition of 12 more officers will not only enable [us] to increase anti-terrorism vigilance, but also provide heightened security throughout the transit system,” said SEPTA General Manager Joseph Casey in a prepared statement.

The DHS also awarded $4.9 million to the Chicago Police Department for CTA’s mass-transit unit and more than $1.6 million to Metra. The agencies will use the grants to add uniformed and undercover officers assigned to terrorism prevention, add canine teams trained to detect explosives and deploy more bomb-detection equipment.