DALLAS -- Rail, bus, and streetcar projects in 13 states would be in line for $3.2 billion of capital investment grants from the Federal Transit Administration under President Obama's proposed $4 trillion budget for fiscal 2016.
Funding in 2016 would go to 25 transit projects, including Maryland's Purple Line and Red Line proposals, expansion of the Bay Area Rapid Transit System in San Francisco, the Green Line extension in Boston, and a new rail link to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
The budget also would fund two new competitive transit grant programs, with $320 million to move proposed projects closer to full funding and $350 million for capacity expansion projects along existing transit corridors.
The proposed fiscal 2016 New Start and Small Starts capital grants would include $1.4 billion for nine projects with full funding agreements that have already received $3.9 billion of FTA grants. The grants also include $792 million for seven projects that have been recommended for full funding agreements and $350 million for nine smaller projects expected to cost $250 million each or less.
The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transit would get the largest single grant in fiscal 2016 with $265 million for its $5.1 billion, 20-mile rail line along the southern coast of Oahu. The project has already received more than $1 billion through the FTA's New Starts grant program.
The more than $800 million of grants for California projects include $165 million to extend the BART system to San Jose, $150 million for a light rail project in San Diego, and three subway segments in downtown Los Angeles totaling $330 million.
Maryland's Red Line and Purple Line projects would be allocated $100 million each. The Fort Worth Transportation Authority's $900 million proposal for a commuter rail line from downtown Fort Worth to DFW Airport would receive its first $100 million in federal funding. The FTA is expected to provide a total of $445 million for the project.
The transit grants are part of the Transportation Department's proposed $94 billion budget for fiscal 2016. The 2016 budget would be the first year of the Obama administration's six-year, $478 billion transportation plan that would be financed with $238 billion from new tax rates on corporate foreign earnings and $240 billion of gasoline tax revenues.
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said Tuesday in a conference call with reporters that the administration would file its new Grow America Act 2.0 transportation bill "in the very near future." The measure is a revised version of the Grow America Act proposed by Obama in 2014 that received scant consideration in Congress.
Meanwhile, in the legislative arena, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., is expected to refile his proposal from the last Congress to raise the federal gasoline tax to 33.4 cents per gallon from the current 18.4 cents over three years.
Rep. Richard Hanna, R-N.Y., and Rep, Janice Hahn, D-Calif., have introduced a bill that would allow states to capitalize infrastructure banks with up to 15% of annual federal transportation funding through 2020. The House measure, H.R. 652, is similar to S. 206 filed in the Senate last month by Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H.
The state infrastructure banks would provide low-interest loans, construction debt financing, and lines of credit to local highway and transit projects, Hanna said.
