A little while ago, the Federal Transit Authority announced that it’s advancing around $182 million in New Starts grants to a handful of transit projects already under construction — and among the short stack of recipients is Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s Green Line (referred to in the feds’ release as “Northwest/Southeast Light Rail”). And, thing is, today’s announcement comes as quite the surprise to DART officials.
“We did not know it was coming,” says the transit agency’s spokesman Morgan Lyons when I called to ask about the $17,788,000 advance payment. But Lyons reminds: The $1.8-billion Green Line, which officially expanded December 6, was paid for in part with a $700-million Full Funding Grant Agreement from the FTA, which is doled out over several years. Just last year, for instance, the feds kicked in $78.4 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which was an advance on the FY2014 payment.
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