The City of Madison’s Board of Estimates approved an amendment Monday evening which will speed up the process of building a new satellite bus garage.
The city will soon apply to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant. If awarded, the money from this grant will be used for a new satellite bus garage, which the city approved designs for in 2014.
“The urgency for a bus garage is significant,” transit general manager Chuck Kamp said.
Currently, the Madison Metro Transit’s bus facility is overcrowded. The warehouse, located on East Washington Avenue, is meant to hold 160 buses yet it currently houses more than 200, Kamp said.
Because of this overcrowding and garage capacity constraints, Metro is unable to add more buses to alleviate bus overcrowding during peak hours of usage.
According to the amendment, City Council approved a contract to design a new satellite bus facility located on the Nakoosa Trail in 2014. This new satellite garage is designed to house 56 buses and was adopted into the 2015 Capital Improvement Plan (CIP).
The CIP allotted for $35 million for a satellite bus facility, and this was scheduled to be put into effect from 2018-20.
The DOT released a notice of funding availability earlier this month. According to the amendment, to be a competitive candidate for the TIGER grant, the applicant should match 30-50 percent cash of the funds given by the grant.
The board approved the funding request as well as a request to move up the start of the funding date from 2018-20 to 2016-18 and an increase of city funding for the project from $7 million to $17.5 million.
According to Ald. Larry Palm, District 12, the mayor will have final say as to what percentage the city will agree to match, however he said he expects it to be on the higher end of the 30-50 percent spectrum.
The amendment will move to City Council.
