The Wisconsin Department of Administration (DOA) announced the awardees for its Transit Capital Assistance Grant Program through the Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust. The DOA awarded all $32 million allocated for the replacement of class 4-8 diesel public transit buses with alternative fueled buses as outline in the State Beneficiary Mitigation Plan.
The DOA received 12 applications and 10 received grant awards – one was disqualified as an ineligible applicant and one was eliminated through the weighting and scoring process. Applicants were allowed to propose receiving funds for bus replacement costs and were given a fixed allowance for the scrapping costs of each replaced bus. In total 58 buses will be scrapped and replaced. The breakdown of replacement bus types is: six battery-electric, three hybrid-electric, 49 diesel-powered (11 of which could instead be hybrid-electric).
