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9/19/2022
The American Public Transportation Association last week sent a letter asking congressional leaders for at least $129 million in emergency appropriations for transit agencies.
The funds would go to the Federal Transit Administration's Public Transportation Emergency Relief Program, which helps transit agencies offset the costs of providing emergency transportation services, including the rebuilding of damaged infrastructure and the replacement of vehicles destroyed by natural disasters, APTA officials said in a press release.
In a survey of U.S. transit agencies, APTA identified at least $129 million in unmet funding needs related to recent natural disasters, including floods, hurricanes, wildfires and earthquakes.
"In response to prior natural disasters, such as Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria or the Alaska Earthquake, Congress has provided emergency funding to help public transit agencies respond to and recover from natural disasters. Accordingly, we urge you to provide at least $129 million of emergency appropriations to FTA’s Public Transportation Emergency Relief program to offset public transit agencies’ significant costs for disaster response, recovery, and rebuilding activities," wrote APTA President and CEO Paul Skoutelas.
Just over $40 million of that funding should go to Bi-State Development, which operates Metro Transit-St. Louis in St. Louis, Missouri, Skoutelas wrote. The transit system experienced severe flooding in July that destroyed one light-rail vehicle, two station elevators and a signal house. The flooding also damaged five miles of light-rail track bed and communications, signal and fiber-optics systems.