The City of Norman and Cleveland Area Rapid Transit will receive millions of dollars of President Barack Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s first round of funding for transportation.
$1.8 million will go to CART to be used for the enhancement of the fleet as part of transit improvement.
Theta Dempsey, CART administrative director, said CART plans on using the funds to purchase five compressed natural gas buses.
“We already have three compressed natural gas buses and the three of the five will be used to replace our diesel buses with the other two being additional for the fleet,” Dempsey said.
The OU Board of Regents is expected to vote on the purchase in today’s meeting.
“Since it is a university purchase, it must be approved by the regents,” she said. “After that, we need approval from [the Association of Central Oklahoma Governments] and Federal Transit before we can move forward.”
Dempsey said CART anticipates getting the buses by fall 2010.
Stimulus funds coming to Norman will be administered for road and bridge improvement.
“We have received about $3.2 million distributed by ACOG which we plan to use for road improvements, specifically road resurfacing,” said Shawn O’Leary, Norman Public Works director.
O’Leary said the funds will be immediately put to use. Norman and ODOT hope to take project bids in June and begin construction in July.
“While it is great that the stimulus package will probably create more jobs, my concern is do we have enough resources to get the work done in such a short amount of time?” he said.
O’Leary said future stimulus opportunities for Norman include water treatment, improvements for the police and fire departments and green info structures.
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anonymous 3 years, 2 months ago
info structures? Does anyone proofread these articles?