Cincinnati’s Metro announced the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments (OKI) has awarded the agency $13.4 million in federal grant funding toward the purchase of new electric buses for fixed-route service, as well as for the modernization of Metro’s operations and maintenance facility in Bond Hill.

“Making transportation more convenient and more sustainable is at the heart of the Reinventing Metro mission and such initiatives wouldn’t be possible without partnerships like these,” said Metro CEO and GM Darryl Haley. “I’d like to thank our friends at OKI for continuing to support our efforts to transform public transit and infrastructure in our region.”

Metro will receive $5.5 million toward the purchase of 11 new electric buses to add to its increasingly green fleet. The funding comes on the heels of additional grants awarded to Metro earlier this year to diversify its energy usage by replacing aging transit vehicles and infrastructure and purchasing buses powered on biofuel.

Additionally, this round of grant funding will provide Metro $7.9 million toward the renovation of its existing operations and maintenance facility on Paddock Road. Securing this funding will allow Metro to continue delivering on the promise of Issue 7 and Reinventing Metro to provide more robust, convenient transit access throughout more of Hamilton County.  

The grant awards were part of a $69-million disbursement of funds toward 34 regional transportation projects across Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky, through the federal Surface Transportation Block Grant and Transportation Alternatives programs.