Colorado will tap nearly $14 million from its share of a Volkswagen settlement to help six local transit agencies replace 28 diesel buses with electric or cleaner-burning vehicles.
The grants, to be doled out to agencies from the Front Range to Gunnison, resulted from the state’s plan to use $68.7 million it received from the Volkswagen emissions scandal. The money is providing most agencies with battery-powered buses, along with charging equipment, but four of the buses will be powered by low-emission compressed natural gas or propane.
Shoshana Lew, the executive director of the Colorado Department of Transportation, said in a news release that CDOT “is committed to reducing congestion on the ground and in the air, through enhanced multimodal options and new technologies, such as these buses.”
CDOT awarded these grants: $8.5 million to the Regional Transportation District in the Denver metro area, for 15 electric buses; $1.9 million to Colorado Springs, for three electric buses; $1.6 million to Eagle County, for three electric buses; nearly $1.3 million in two grants to Fort Collins, for two electric buses and three propane-powered buses; $410,300 to Boulder, for an electric bus; and $183,700 to Gunnison Valley Rural Transportation Authority, for a compressed natural gas-powered bus.
Gov. Jared Polis earlier this year issued an executive order aimed at putting more electric vehicles on Colorado roads, and CDOT’s release says the grants are the state’s first major investment in that effort.