Raleigh struck out on its bid for money to upgrade New Bern Avenue with sidewalks and super bus service, but Charlotte hit it big today with a $25 million federal grant to start building a downtown streetcar line.
The Federal Transit Administration announced $293 million in grants for urban circulators and downtown livability programs. Charlotte was among six cities that won the maximum $25 million for downtown circulators: ... [MORE]
One thing Triangle Transit had to give up in 2006, when it was forced to shelve a three-county rail transit plan, was a $19.6 million federal grant that had been earmarked for the project in a congressional appropriations bill.
It is the largest of $120 million in so-called “disappearmarks” listed today in a report from the Washington-based Sunlight Foundation, a non-partisan open-government advocacy group.
David King, Triangle Transit’s general manager, says the local agency could have made good use of that money now, as it develops a new regional transit plan that will be discussed in a series of public meetings that start next week. ...
Who let the horse out of the barn? That’s what Andrew Perkins Jr. of Greensboro, a member of the state Board of Transportation, wanted to know.
At a board meeting this week Perkins said he was satisified with how the state Department of Transportation responded to a critical audit and review by the Federal Transit Administration.
But he didn’t like seeing a newspaper story published before DOT had a chance to put the best face on its problems with the feds. He chided DOT for the bad press.
A DOT administrator explained that he had felt an obligation to answer questions from a News & Observer reporter. And a DOT lawyer politely schooled Perkins on the workings of North Carolina’s open government laws. . . .
Grants worth $25 million for local public transportation services across the state are still frozen because North Carolina — alone among the 50 states — has not yet convinced federal officials that it will manage the money properly.
[Update 12 noon Wednesday 12/10: Feds release state transit grants]
State Department of Transportation officials will have two opportunities at public meetings in Raleigh Wednesday to explain why the Federal Transit Administration took the unusual step of freezing grants that were tentatively approved in September.
“Withholding funds is a tool FTA uses sparingly,” the FTA said by e-mail. Tia N. Swain, an agency spokeswoman in Washington, provided the FTA statement this week in response to questions from The News & Observer. . . .
