Laredo Morning Times - Laredo Transit Management To See $10 Million in Federal Funding For El Metro Improvements

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Rep. Henry Cuellar and the City of Laredo announced Monday about $9.9 million in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation to Laredo Transit Management Inc. for the first phase of construction and rehabilitation of the El Metro operations and maintenance facility.

The funds come from DOT's Federal Transit Administration's Bus and Bus Facilities Grant Program.

The nearly $10 million in federal funds to Laredo Transit Management Inc. will be used for the construction of the first phase of a two-phase project for the new El Metro operations and maintenance facility, whose future site location will be at Jacaman Road and Bartlett Avenue.

The project is anticipated to receive $7 million in matching funds generated from City of Laredo sales tax revenue and $5,960,160 in an in-kind match via real estate and labor.

This grant is aligned with El Metro's 25-year plan to nearly double in size with the construction of a new bus-oriented facility.

Once complete, the transit center will allow the city to provide a safer, more reliable mode of public transportation and give the city the ability to expand to meet the community's future needs.

The new facility will have the capacity of housing a fleet of more than 70 vehicles.

The funds announced Monday will be used to construct a new 17,000-square-foot administration center, a 36,000-square-foot maintenance facility and a 6,000-square-foot bush wash and compressed natural gas fueling facility.

In the future, phase II of the project will include the construction of a park-and-ride location.

El Metro's bus transit passenger boarding's are twice the national average and three times that of other systems in Texas.

The current facility, 401 Scott St., was built in 1981 and served as the City of Laredo's primary sanitation facility before being re-purposed for use by El Metro in 1995.

The condition of the facility, and the fact that it is land-locked near a residential neighborhood, prevents a much-needed expansion on its current site.

"A great opportunity has been given to Laredo with this grant that will help Laredo to grow its public transit system and begin a much needed revamp to this system that has been in the same facility on Scott Street for 25 years," said Mayor Pete Saenz.

"We thank (Cuellar) for his leadership and advocacy, as well as the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Transit Administration for their gift to Laredo in the form of this grant.

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