CDTA gets $9.5 million in federal grants

PHOTOGRAPHER: Stephen Williams

The Capital District Transportation Authority has been awarded $9.5 million in federal grant money to complete its BusPlus capital improvements and to buy new buses next year.

U.S. Sens. Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, both D-N.Y., announced the new funding from two separate Department of Transportation grants today.

One grant is for $5.5 million to complete the infrastructure for BusPlus, CDTA’s new and high-profile rapid transit bus service along Route 5 between Albany and Schenectady. The BusPlus money will be used to pay for build eight more bus stations, for installing emergency phones, for security cameras and for real-time message signs that will alert people waiting to when the next bus will arrive.

BusPlus was launched last April after a decade of planning. The federal government has already put $16.5 million into the effort, which has included buying a new fleet of diesel-electric hybrid buses and building 18 new stations specifically for the express service between the two cities.

CDTA officials have said BusPlus has been more successful than initially anticipated, increasing ridership about 10 percent in the corridor. The Central Avenue corridor is already the transit agency’s busiest, with about 3.5 million boardings last year.

The second grant from the federal Department of Transportation will pay $4 million toward new buses the authority will need to buy in 2012 to replace aging buses.