Thanks to a boost in funding from the federal infrastructure bill, the fund estimate for ATP Cycle 6 has increased to $650 million, which will hopefully allow more worthy projects to be funded this cycle. Negotiations continue on the Governor’s transportation package announced earlier this year, which includes a one-time augmentation to the ATP of $500 million. We continue to advocate for the legislature to go beyond that figure, however, and approve a total of $2 billion, to be allocated between funding high-scoring projects in Cycle 5 and increasing the available funds in Cycle 6.
The current surge in gas prices has made the necessity of investing in alternative transportation all the more obvious. We and coalition partners responded to the governor’s proposal for payments to auto owners with a letter outlining the case for instead boosting transit operations significantly more than the governor proposed, as both a short- and long term solution, and, again, greatly increasing the ATP’s capacity, thereby reducing auto dependency in the long term.
