Zoom Press Conference: Bus Funding Announcement (March 15, 2022) - YouTube

- Good afternoon my name is Paul Kincaid. I'm  Associate Administrator for Communications and  

Congressional Affairs at the Federal Transit  Administration. And I'm proud to be one of the  

four presidential appointees at the FTA from  the Biden - Harris administration. I'm joined  

by Sean Egan, director of Transportation for  the City of Durham. And I want to acknowledge  

FTA's region 4 administrator Yvette Taylor and  her deputy administrator as well Dudley Whyte,  

who are on the line. They do a wonderful job  managing our federal transit investment in North  

Carolina and throughout the southeast. We just  announced we are awarding grants to 70 transit  

agencies in 39 states that will help improve the  safety and reliability of America's bus systems.  

These grants range in size from $50,000 to nearly  $23 million and they're available through FTA's  

grants for bus and bus facilities. They support  modernizing and improving the most widespread form  

of transit in America - the bus. In addition,  these grants will help dozens of communities  

buy new technology buses such as electric, that  reduce or eliminate greenhouse gas emissions,  

promote cleaner air and help the climate  crisis. The City of Durham will receive  

10.8 million dollars to improve Durham Station  transportation center. The city's busy transit  

hub is one of the largest grants in this  program. That hub has thousands of riders  

boarding buses every day. And these improvements  will add eight bus bays and redesigned bus lanes  

allowing transit agencies to add bus  frequency while also improving safety.  

It'll also install canopies in the passenger  waiting areas to shelter people from the rain.  

It'll allow more buses to run on Go Durham and Go  Triangle routes creating better access for  

residents and students. And with continued  space for inner city buses like Greyhound,  

Megabus and Flixbus, it will strengthen a hub  that allows more riders to more easily connect  

to local and regional destinations in North  Carolina and throughout the South. All of this  

will enhance access and mobility; particularly for  the two-thirds of people who don't have a car. The  

project will also further Durham's climate goals  by providing spaces for electric bus charging  

and installing solar panels on new bus island  canopies. These panels will generate enough energy  

to make the energy used at the station potentially  a net positive. City leaders introduced two  

electric buses to Go Durham's fleet last year and  they plan to ramp up the electrification program  

in the months and years ahead. This station  upgrade will set the stage for that effort  

FTA is happy to play a role in maintaining and  improving Go Durham's bus service. In total,  

we're going to award over 409 million dollars to  improve our nation's bus transportation systems.  

These grants were announced by Secretary Pete  Buttigieg and FTA Administrator Nuria Fernandez  

earlier this week. With this funding, transit  agencies all over the country are going to be  

able to support, build, repair, expand and improve  fleets, and the facilities that support them.  

This is especially important during the pandemic  which showed us just how many frontline workers  

and others rely on the nation's bus systems to  get to jobs and other opportunities. Importantly  

these grant awards will take on the greatest  challenge of our time: the climate crisis. By  

helping transit agencies transition their fleets  to electric and other zero mission technologies.  

When we put more zero emission buses on the road,  as so many transit agencies large and small are  

doing across the nation, we take a major step  forward toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  

Converting bus fleets and buying the  equipment to power and maintain them  

are big ticket items so the Administration is  ready to do our part to help offset that cost.  

Now before I turn this over to Sean to  supply a few more details about Durham,  

I want to make sure I take a moment to touch on  the bipartisan infrastructure law. It was signed  

by President Biden last November. And it provides  108 billion dollars for transit over the next five  

years. It's the largest investment in federal  transit in our history, thanks to the bipartisan  

infrastructure law. We did announce just the other  week more than one and a half billion dollars  

of total grants for buses across the country. Most  of them low and no emission buses. This additional  

transit funding at the federal level will allow us  in partnership with local programs like Go Durham  

to expand and modernize transit building equity by  connecting more people and underserved communities  

while we take on the climate crisis. Now let  me turn this over to Sean for a few remarks.  

In the meantime, if you have any questions please  click the Q & A button at the bottom of your Zoom  

screen. The Q & A button on your Zoom screen  and we'll be able to answer any questions that  

you have after Sean is done. Thank you  for your time. Sean, the floor is yours.

- Thank you so much, Paul. My name is Sean  Egan. I'm the director of Transportation  

for the City of Durham. The City is responsible  for the Go Durham bus and paratransit service.  

And we also coordinate regional and intercity  bus offerings that operate out of Durham Station.  

Combined all of these services offer 15,000  boardings a day at Durham Station. And we want to  

provide a high quality experience for our  riders at Durham Station, so, we began the  

planning process for this project by reaching  out and engaging with our riders. And asking them  

how can we improve your experience at Durham  Station. What we heard from them was they want  

better canopy coverage. They want to see more of  the canopy area so that they are protected from  

the elements. We're currently at about 20% coverage. This project takes us to 80%

coverage. They wanted to see more seating available  and more comfortable space while they wait for  

their buses to arrive. And while they're getting  ready to transfer between buses, [they] wanted  

better customer information on the platform. They  wanted to be able to use restrooms on the platform  

as many of our riders are transferring and  have limited time to go into the building  

for that need. So, we started this project also  with an understanding that we wanted to grow  

our system in our service. We want to add  frequency. We want to provide better connectivity  

for our service. And so we are  really at the maximum right now of  

how much service we can run in and out of Durham  Station. So, this project will enable us to expand  

that capacity. Run more frequent services, and  provide better connectivity to destinations  

across Durham. We're focused on this need and  the needs of these riders because we know that  

investments in public transportation have a strong  equity benefit. Over 80% of our riders are people  

of color. Over 70% have incomes below 25,000  dollars a year. And as Administrator Kincaid said,  

two-thirds live in a zero-car household so  transit is their transportation. So, as we  

look at this investment, we're so grateful to  our federal partners at the U.S. Department  

of Transportation, Federal Transit Administration  and also to U.S. Representative David Price whose  

letter of support for this project was a key part  of our application to the FTA last year. So, we're  

getting ready right now to finalize the design of  this project. And then looking at construction, 

we'll be continuing to engage our riders and our  community throughout that design process, to make  

sure that what we bring forward fully reflects,  the best of what we can provide, to meet the needs  

of our riders, and our community. And with  that I'm happy to answer any questions.

- Thanks Sean. I appreciate it and we hope to  see a lot of great work being done there around  

Durham and the rest of the Triangle by you and the  folks who get to ride your service. Again, if you  

have any questions click the Q & A button at the  bottom of your Zoom screen. Fill out the form and  

we'll be happy to answer them. In the meantime,  Sean, I was wondering if you could tell us a  

little bit about the timeline for this project  and when we can expect to see it in service.

- So, we'll be undertaking the design of this  over the next year and we really want to make  

sure with our community that the concepts that  we've developed to date really hit the mark.  

But assuming that we get that validation, that  we hear from the community, that everything that  

we've brought forward in the concepts is on the  mark, then, we could start construction in 2023.  

And then look at potentially completing  construction by the end of 2024.  

So, we want to move quickly. Our riders  have told us they want more improvements  

more quickly and we aim to deliver  this project to address that need.

- That's great. Kylie Marsh asks how long will  construction take for the new bus lanes and  

the canopies but she also wants to know what the  environmental impact of that construction will be?

- So, we think that this is going to have a  really strong beneficial environmental impact  

as we talked about. This project will provide  charging equipment for our battery electric buses;  

two of which are in service. We have six more on  order. And we're looking to transition our fleet  

away from fossil fuels into battery electric.  And the charging stations that will be part of  

this project enable that transition. We're also  adding solar panels on the canopies to try to  

collect as much power from renewable sources  as possible. And even to have a net positive  

impact; collecting more power from our solar  panels than we use to run our facility. So,  

the overall environmental impact of this,  we're really, doubling down. We're taking  

a sustainable mode of transportation which is  our bus transit service. And then we're adding  

battery emissions... battery electric buses,  there are zero emissions and we're also adding  

renewable energy to this. So, the net  environmental benefit should be very positive.

- And Sean while you're spotlighted, I know  you talked about it a second ago but can you  

address kind of the timeline of of when you  expect the canopies and lands to be open?

- So, we'd like to start construction in  2023 and complete construction in 2024.  

We know that that's an ambitious schedule but as  I said our riders have told us time and again that  

they want their improvements delivered quickly.  And so we'll be making every effort to do that.

- Great. Leoneda Inge asks if Durham Station  will keep its look designed by the former  

Freelon architect? And also wanted to know  if the renovation of Durham Station has  

anything to do with the large number of apartment  buildings that have popped up around the station?

- The building at the Durham Station  transportation center was designed by  

Philip Freelon; he is a Durham treasure. And we  celebrate his legacy with that building so there  

will be no changes to the building itself. But  we are looking at all of the exterior spaces.  

How can we reconfigure that space make the  best use of that to address pedestrian safety,  

to address expansion and to make this a welcoming  open and inclusive space. All of the exterior  

spaces. So that many folks are visiting Durham  from as far as Washington DC or Atlanta, Georgia  

and they're riding inter-city buses in. And  Durham Station is the first place that they  

see in the city of Durham. And we want that to  be an open, welcoming, inclusive experience for our  

folks coming to visit us as well as the folks  who live here and use our services every day.

- Great, thanks Sean. And we'll wait 15, 15 or 20  seconds to see if anybody else has any questions.  

In the meantime, if there are no other questions  I want to thank Sean Egan for joining us today  

as well as our regional office staff Yvette  Taylor and Dudley Whyte. And thank you all for  

for tuning in today to this Zoom to ask  questions. If you do have any questions,  

as, as you write your stories or do your broadcast  please feel free to touch base with the folks who  

invited you to this session. They'll be glad  to answer any questions that you might have.  

It doesn't look like we have any  questions in the pod. So, Sean,  

I'll give the last word to you. Anything you'd  like to add for the folks there in Durham who are  

going to get a chance to have this wonderful  facility sometime in 2024 it sounds like?

- So, we are so excited and so grateful for the  support and partnership of the federal government.  

And we think that this is going to be a project  that you're incredibly proud of. We're going to  

make our community proud and really focus our  investment in residents in communities that  

have too often been excluded from the benefits  of transportation investments. Particularly from  

the federal government and that's something  that we're is top of mind for us; making  

sure that this investment really addresses those  justice for communities that have too often been  

either underserved or harmed by transportation  investments and that's the focus of our effort; is  

intentionally benefiting those communities  with these projects. So, we're very excited  

to be moving this forward. And  very grateful for the support

- Thank you, Sean. I know it's a big time of  the year around and we can't quite compete with  

March Madness but I hope we've given you a few  million things to celebrate there in Durham and we  

appreciate you taking the time today.

- Thank you.

- And thank you all have a great day from Washington.