(The Center Square) – One of Seattle’s most used bus routes received a $64.2 million federal grant to improve reliability and access.
The funding stems from the Federal Transit Administration’ Small Starts Grant Program , which are intended for projects that cost less than $400 million in total and are seeking grant funding of less than $150 million.
The RapidRide J Line project has a total project budget of $128.5 million. Along with the latest federal grant funding, the project also received $9.6 million from the Federal Highway Administration.
Seattle alone is funding the project with $43 million, mostly stemming from the Levy to Move Seattle, which is a nine-year, $930 million levy providing funding to improve and maintain city streets and bridges.
The Center Square reached out to the Seattle Department of Transportation to learn about the levy rate, but did not receive a response at the time of this publication. However, according to the passed legislation , the levy provides roughly 30% of the city’s transportation budget toward road and bridge projects.