SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Federal public transportation law (49 U.S.C. 5339(b)) authorizes FTA to make competitive grants for the Bus Competitive Program.

Federal public transportation law (49 U.S.C. 5338(a)(2)(M)) authorized $408,223,797 in FY 2026 funds for the Bus Competitive Program after an oversight takedown.

On May 15, 2025, FTA published a joint Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) announcing the availability of approximately $398 million in FY 2025 Bus Competitive Program funds and approximately $1.10 billion in Low or No Emission (Low-No) Program funds (90 FR 20737). FTA is electing to select additional projects from this NOFO using FY 2026 Bus Competitive Program funds, as well as available prior year funds. These funds will provide financial assistance to states and eligible public agencies to replace, rehabilitate, purchase, or lease buses, vans, and related equipment; and for capital projects to rehabilitate, purchase, construct, or lease bus-related facilities. In response to the NOFO, FTA received 479 eligible project proposals requesting approximately $6.8 billion in Federal funds. Project proposals were evaluated based on each applicant's ( printed page 12903) responsiveness to the program evaluation criteria outlined in the NOFO.

Based on the criteria in the NOFO, FTA is funding 34 projects, as shown in Table 1, for a total of $388,279,883. A minimum of 15 percent of the amount made available for the Bus Competitive Program is set aside for projects located in rural areas, which is reflected in FTA's joint selections across FY 2025 and FY 2026. A statutory cap of 10 percent for any one applicant in the Bus Competitive Program is reflected as well.

Recipients selected for competitive funding are required to work with their FTA Regional Office to submit a grant application in FTA's Transit Award Management System (TrAMS) for the projects identified in the attached table to quickly obligate funds. A discretionary project identification number has been assigned to each project for tracking purposes and must be used in the TrAMS application. Grant applications must include only eligible activities applied for in the original project proposal.

When the allocated amount is less than the requested amount, recipients must reduce scope or scale the project so that a complete phase or a usable segment of the originally proposed project is implemented. Amounts may be reduced because they were capped or scaled due to more funding being requested than available, ineligible expenses may have been removed from the funded project scope, or funding was allocated for only the low-emission elements of a mixed-emission project. In all such cases where the amount allocated is less than the amount requested, the recipient should work with its Regional Office to reduce the scope appropriately. Recipients may also provide additional local funds to complete a proposed project.

Selected projects are eligible to incur costs under pre-award authority no earlier than Friday, February 20, 2026. Pre-award costs are incurred at your own risk, and the announcement that a project was selected does not guarantee that FTA will, in fact, obligate a grant for the funding. FTA is not required to reimburse pre-award costs if you do not receive an obligated grant or if the obligated grant is less than anticipated and is inadequate to cover all pre-award costs. Eligibility for reimbursement is contingent upon planning and environmental requirements having been met, among other factors. For more about FTA's policy on pre-award authority, please see the current FTA Apportionments, Allocations, and Program Information at https://www.transit.dot.gov/​funding/​apportionments.

Post-award reporting requirements include submission of Federal Financial Reports and Milestone Progress Reports in TrAMS (see FTA Circular 5010.1F). Recipients must comply with all applicable Federal statutes, regulations, executive orders, FTA circulars, and other Federal requirements in carrying out the project supported by the FTA grant. FTA emphasizes that recipients must follow all third-party procurement requirements set forth in Federal public transportation law (49 U.S.C. 5325(a)) and described in the FTA Third Party Contracting Guidance Circular (FTA Circular 4220.1G).

Funds allocated in this announcement must be obligated in a grant by September 30, 2029.

Technical Review and Evaluation Summary: The FTA assessed all project proposals that were submitted under the FY 2025 Buses and Bus Facilities Program and the Low-No Program competition. For information on the evaluation criteria, please refer to Federal Register Notice (91 FR 1856): https://www.federalregister.gov/​documents/​2026/​01/​15/​2026-00643/​announcement-of-fiscal-year-2025-grants-for-buses-and-bus-facilities-program-and-fiscal-year-2025.

91 FR 12902