The Department of Transportation has set aside $776 in discretionary bus grant funds to improve bus facilities and services in the fiscal year of 2011. Peter Rogoff of the Federal Transportation Administration states that over $4 billion dollars was requested from more than 400 state and local agencies applying for the grants; this year marks the largest funding allocation for bus grants by the Department of Transportation.

The primary reason the Federal Transportation Administration had more funds at its disposal this year is due to the expiration of SAFETEA-LU (The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act - A Legacy for Users) Congressional earmarks for FY 2010. Funds set aside for projects that did not come to fruition are making more grant monies available, yet fewer projects will be funded this year than last with monies concentrated more highly in fewer projects and geographical regions rather than spread widely among a greater number of applicants and areas (approximately 150 grants to 43 states and Washington, D.C. in 2010 in contrast to 669 projects in 48 states in 2009).

Some debate surrounds the earmarking process. While some argue that the Federal Transportation Administration’s competitive grant application process may be a better means to ensure a fair distribution of funds than Congressional earmarking, in actuality, last year earmarks facilitated a more wide spread distribution of funds across the nation in both urban and non-urbanized areas. Without earmarks, the Department of Transportation has guidelines under which grant applications are assessed, but the selection process for grant awards is not yet made public; given the more narrow distribution of funds this year, greater transparency in the selection of awardees would shed light on the reasons why a few metropolitan areas received large grants at the cost of funding more projects. In addition, transparency would show how, if at all, the selection process might have been influenced by the needs of the Department of Transportation committee members and pressures from their constituents.