On Friday, the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) announced it had provided written comments to Federal Transit Administration with regard to the Capital Investment Grant (CIG) Program on behalf of its 1,500 public and private-sector members.
In a letter to FTA Administrator Nuria Fernandez, APTA responded to the FTA’s Request for Information, addressing each of the administration’s 19 questions in detail.
“APTA strongly supports the CIG program, and we are grateful for the opportunity to provide this input,” said APTA President and CEO Paul P. Skoutelas. “We appreciate that FTA is seeking feedback from the industry and all interested parties and is considering a myriad of ways that the CIG program and processes could be improved…. As APTA considers ways to improve the CIG program and processes, we urge the agency to undertake a zero-based review of all CIG requirements. We are also excited that FTA’s RFI suggests that the CIG program expand ways for FTA to consider issues of equity, access to opportunity, human health, and other ways that transit can improve the lives of Americans.”
In addition, APTA released a dashboard of CIG projects in the FTA’s program pipeline that includes all CIG projects in the pipeline, their different stages of project development, and the amount of funds allocated for each project. Each project on the dashboard includes a link to its profile that is updated by the FTA.
The tool, APTA said, shows the unmet need that remains for current CIG projects and how much funding remains available by project type. According to the CIG Project Pipeline, 67 projects have almost $28 billion in unmet CIG funding.