The Ohio Department of Transportation's (ODOT) 2024 Ohio Transit Partnership Program (OTP2) awarded $12.6 million to the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (RTA) to support the agency's Rail Car Replacement Program and electrical vehicle planning.
The majority of the grant, $12.4 million, will go towards RTA’s Rail Car Replacement Program, and $200,000 will go to electrical vehicle planning.
“This is the fourth year that the ODOT has awarded funding to the Rail Car Replacement Program and brings the total ODOT funding to $33.8 million,” said RTA Deputy General Manager Engineering and Project Management, Michael J. Schipper. “With this award RTA has now raised $355.3 million of the $393 million total program budget.”
The $200,000 funding will be utilized to plan and develop a program to evaluate bus routes for the future transition of adding electric buses to RTA’s bus fleet.
“Funding opportunities such as these underscore the importance of public transportation to our region and subsequent investment in our communities. We are extremely pleased with the outcome of this round of funding and appreciate ODOT’s continued support of our Rail Car Replacement Program, and research into electric vehicles,” said RTA General Manager, Chief Executive Officer India L. Birdsong Terry.
