DOT Awards Grants for Transit Needs of U.S. Tribes

Parul Dubey on January 2, 2018 - in Financial, News

Transportation is a lifeline for residents of tribal communities. Residents in these communities often must travel many miles to reach jobs, healthcare and other basic services.

That’s why the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) awarded nearly $5 million in grants to help tribal communities provide public transportation on tribal lands.

FTA’s Tribal Transit Program makes funds available to federally recognized Indian tribes and Alaskan Native villages, groups or communities to support capital projects, operating costs and planning activities for public transportation services on and around Indian Country.

By improving their transit options, tribal communities can better connect residents to jobs, education, healthcare and other services. Learn more about the Tribal Transit Program in our latest video.

The funding announced today is from fiscal year 2017 Tribal Transit program funds and will go to 36 competitively selected transit projects in 19 states. Examples of selected projects include:

The Native Village of Barrow in Alaska will receive funding to increase its transit service, expanding from one bus operating inside the village to additional buses serving the rural areas in a 21-mile area north of the Arctic Circle. The new buses will help residents, including many older adults, travel into the village to access services including health care, education, cultural programming, and more in Barrow.
The Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Indian Reservation in Nevada will receive funding to create the first tribal transit program to serve the reservation, which is in a remote area 100 miles away from the nearest cities — Elko, Nevada, and Mountain Home, Idaho.

In addition to the $5 million in competitive funding announced today, $30 million in formula funding is provided to tribes each fiscal year. Under the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, funding for the Tribal Transit Program was increased to $35 million annually through Fiscal Year 2020.