Funding
Various federal, state, and local programs are available to assist transportation programs in the Pikes Peak region. A summary of the most common sources of funding are included below.
Federal Funding
5310 Enhanced Mobility of Seniors and Individuals with Disabilities Program
The FTA Section 5310 program allocates funds for both capital and operating expenses to states and other designated recipients. These funds are intended to improve transportation options and meet the needs of individuals with disabilities and seniors. Although services funded by 5310 funds can be used by the public on an occasional basis, projects receiving these funds are required to cater to the needs of seniors and people with disabilities. In Colorado, CDOT administers 5310 funds for small urbanized and rural areas. PPACG administers 5310 funds for the Colorado Springs UZA, while CDOT provides supplemental 5310 rural transit funding to smaller providers in the region.
Projects receiving 5310 funding must be included in a coordinated plan. Additionally, regulations require that at least 55% of those funds must be available for traditional projects (such as mobility management and capital purchases), while the remainder can be utilized for other operating and capital projects. At present, the following organizations are subrecipients of Section 5310 funds through PPACG:
- Envida
- Silver Key Senior Services
5311 Rural Area Formula Program
The 5311 program offers planning, capital, operating and administrative assistance to states to aid transit in rural areas with populations under 50,000. Recipients of 5311 funds can be recognized Indian tribes, local governments, public transit operators, and nonprofits. CDOT provides supplemental 5311 funding to smaller providers in the Colorado Springs region (for example, Envida uses 5311 funding to operate deviated fixed-routes in eastern El Paso County).
5307 Urbanized Area Formula Grants
5307 funds are available to assist with operating and capital assistance for transit and for planning related to transportation in urban areas with more than 50,000 people. In the Colorado Springs metropolitan region, MMT is the designated recipient of 5307 funds.
Competitive FTA Grants
The FTA offers various competitive grants that could support mobility for Specialized Transportation Plan focus populations in the Pikes Peak region. Those include (but are not limited to) the following:
- Mobility on Demand (MOD) Sandbox Demonstration Program: Supports projects promoting inventive business models to provide equitable, high quality transportation choices for everyone.
- Innovative Coordinated Access and Mobility (ICAM) Grants: Funding supporting innovative projects improving coordination of services.
- Integrated Mobility Innovation: Funding for projects demonstrating effective and innovative practices, technologies, and partnerships that enhance the effectiveness of transit, improve efficiency, improve quality, foster safety, and upgrade the experiences of travelers.
- Enhancing Mobility Innovation: Aims to promote projects that focus on the passenger experience and encourage individuals to use transportation services.
- Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) Transportation Discretionary Grants: Funding for transportation infrastructure (including public transportation).
Older Americans Act (OAA)
Funds through the OAA are distributed to PPACG and PPAAA, which supplement grants for human service providers.
State/Local Programs
- PPRTA: The Pikes Peak Regional Transportation Authority (PPRTA) was approved by voters in 2004, authorizing a 1% sales tax supporting PPRTA goals. Funds are assigned to capital and maintenance projects, in addition to transit (which receives 10% of funds). Subsequently renewed in 2012 and in 2022, PPRTA-2 and PPRTA-3 included capital and program funds for transit, which were not included in the original PPRTA transit funds.
- Funding Advancements for Surface Transportation and Economic Recovery Act of 2009 (FASTER) Transit Grants: Provide $15 million every year to support transit projects in Colorado. A third of these funds are awarded competitively as local transit grants, with the rest of the funding being dedicated for statewide projects. Local recipients must provide at least 20% as local match.
- SB-267 Funding: Provides $500 million every year to transportation projects, with 10% of those funds being dedicated to transit. However, this transit funding must be utilized on capital investment projects (therefore, it does not support future/current operating needs of providers).
- SB24-032 Funding: Passed in May 2024, this bill creates a consolidated zero fare transit grant program through the Colorado Energy Office. $7 million is allocated annually for fare-free transit during the ozone season and another $7 million is allocated specifically for youth fare-free transit all year long. Eligible transit agencies outside of the Denver Regional Transportation District (RTD) would apply for and receive grants via CASTA. Agencies will be required to report information back to CASTA. A committee is also established to develop a statewide transit pass, with a report due in 2026.
- MMOF: TheColorado State Legislature created MMOF in 2018, initially providing a one-time provision of funding. In 2021, SB 2021-260 designated a significant share of Colorado’s COVID Fiscal Recovery Funds to MMOF in addition to generating yearly state revenues for the program for the next decade. MMOF funding is allocated by formula across the 15 different Transportation Planning Regions (TPR) in the state, and qualifying projects include operating or capital costs for on-demand and fixed-route transit, programs dealing with TDM, mobility projects enabled by new technologies, and studies dealing with multimodal transportation.