The Washington region is poised to receive $58.8 million on Tuesday that it won in federal stimulus money, a first-of-its-kind award for improving local bus travel across the area. U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is slated to deliver the award himself, putting the area’s often overlooked and disjointed bus system on a national stage to showcase the Obama administration’s transit push.
“We have a tremendous amount of pressure to get this thing moving,” said Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments transportation planning director Ronald Kirby. “We’re hellbent to show this can be done.”
With the money in hand, the work can begin immediately, he said.
Buses are currently waylaid by traffic, confusing maps and unreliable schedules. The award announced last February is intended to make taking the bus easier by getting local agencies to work together on road improvements along the busiest bus corridors, speeding up buses and making them more connected.
Regional transportation officials had applied for a much larger project, seeking $267 million for a plan that included expanded bike-sharing and a bus transitway along K Street. But more than 1,400 applications seeking nearly $60 billion flooded into the DOT for the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grants, known as TIGER grants. The scaled-down award must be spent by 2016.
About $27 million will go to improving Metrobus lines, with Metro working with local transportation agencies to improve roads and traffic signals.
Metrobus Route 28, for example, will benefit from 25 signalized intersections on the Leesburg Pike in Fairfax County, said spokesman Reggie Woodruff. The signals will allow the buses to get priority over other vehicles at the intersections, speeding up the trips.
It also will pay for 10 bus stop improvements such as new shelters on the P12 route of Addison Road in Prince George’s County, he said.
The District Department of Transportation, meanwhile, will be using its share of the money to make other improvements, such as adding real-time transportation information screens that tell commuters when the next bus is arriving and locate the closet Capital Bikeshare stands and Metrorail stations, said spokeswoman Karyn LeBlanc.
