October 28, 2010

Durbin Announces Nearly $7.7 Million in DOT Funding for Illinois Green Transportation Projects

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) today announced that four Illinois public transit projects will receive a total of $7,696,184 in funding through the Department of Transportation’s Transportation Investments for Greenhouse Gas and Energy Reduction (TIGGER) II and Clean Fuels grant programs.
 
This funding is part of $156.2 million made available by the Department of Transportation to encourage transit projects that promote the usage and development of energy efficient technologies. The TIGGER II grant program works with public transit agencies to implement new strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and energy usage in their fleets and operations. The Clean Fuels grant program aims to reduce air pollution and support environmentally friendly clean fuel and advanced propulsion technologies in the nation’s public transit systems.
 
The following projects will receive funding under today’s announcement:
  • Chicago Transit Authority: $2,210,490 in TIGGER II funding for the acquisition of at least two all-electric, battery-powered 40-foot buses. The buses will be used to further the Chicago Transit Authority’s (CTA) “Going Green” initiatives and assess the viability of all-electric propulsion systems in CTA service routes
  • Illinois Department of Transportation (Chicago Metro): $341,694 in TIGGER II funding to install automatic shut-down and start-up systems in an estimated 27 locomotives in the Metra fleet, which operates in the Chicago metro area. Metra estimates that by shutting down instead of idling the locomotives, the automatic systems could save an estimated 800,000 gallons of diesel fuel and reduce CO2 emissions by an estimated 80,000 tons per year.
  • Illinois Department of Transportation (Metro East): $5,000,000 in Clean Fuels funding to replace inefficient gas and diesel powered buses in Madison County that have exceeded their useful life. The new buses will improve fuel economy by 20% to 40% over the current buses, reduce annual fuel consumption between 40,000 to 80,000 gallons per year and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a total of 810 metric tons per year
  • Illinois Department of Transportation (Grundy County): $144,000 in TIGGER II funding for the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) hybrid paratransit fleet. IDOT received a TIGGER grant last year for the same fleet, and has become one of the first agencies in the nation to utilize hybrid buses in mass scale paratransit public transportation, which mainly serves seniors and disabled riders.