On Monday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced that the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) last week beat the September 1st deadline to provide all states and local communities with 50 percent of their Recovery Act transit formula dollars.

The FTA provided nearly 90 percent of its $7.5 billion transit stimulus money to states and local communities. FTA is managing an additional $900 million in discretionary funds for New Starts projects, the Greenhouse Gas and Energy Reduction and Tribal Transit programs and oversight for a total of $8.4 billion.

 “This money will not only create jobs, it will also allow people to get to and from those jobs safely, reliably, and comfortably,” LaHood said. “As we put America back to work, we will also be creating a cleaner environment and reducing our nation’s dependence on foreign oil.”

Since President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) into law on Feb. 17, grants totaling more than $6.7 billion have been made available for transit improvements throughout the country. The majority of these grants will be used to purchase new vehicles, increase safety and security initiatives and construct, rehabilitate, and maintain the various transit systems.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has made $48.1 billion available for highway, road, transit, bridge and airport construction and repairs nationwide. Of that, $26.5 billion already has been obligated to fund more than 7,988 approved projects in 55 U.S. States and Territories. Specific grant information can be found on FTA’s ARRA Grants Digest.