ACOG Accepting Project Applications for FTA Programs

Organizations and government entities interested in applying for FTA Sec. 5316 Job Access and Reverse Commute (JARC) and FTA Sec. 5317 New Freedom funds apportioned to the Oklahoma City Urbanized Area are invited to submit project applications to the Association of Central Oklahoma Governments (ACOG) through Friday, September 21, 2012.

Eligible applicants include private non-profit organizations, state and local governmental authorities, and operators of public transportation services, including private operators of public transportation services. Current federal transportation law, known as SAFETEA-LU, requires that these Federal Transit Administration (FTA) programs, which are designed to better serve lower income, disabled, and older Americans, be competitively selected and derived from a locally developed Coordinated Public Transit-Human Services Transportation Plan. The coordinated plan for the Oklahoma City Urban Area was developed by the Central Oklahoma Transportation and Parking Authority (COTPA) in 2007 and can be downloaded from ACOG’s website at www.acogok.org.

Also available on the ACOG website are three application documents: Information and Application Instructions, Application for JARC Funds, and Application for New Freedom Funds. For this call for projects, the remaining funds from FFY 2011 and the entire FFY 2012 FTA apportionment to the Oklahoma City Urbanized Area have been combined. Therefore, the total amount of funds available for JARC projects is $494,163 and the total amount of funds available for New Freedom projects is $413,208.

Note: MAP-21, the new transportation bill which takes effect on October 1, 2012, eliminates the JARC and New Freedom programs as they currently exist. Under MAP-21, JARC funds will be consolidated with the Section 5307 and 5311 programs, and New Freedom funds will be consolidated with the Section 5310 program. Thus, the FY 2012 allocation of JARC and New Freedom funds will be the last allocation for these programs.     

Additional information concerning eligible projects, matching requirements, labor requirements, and the scoring process that will be used to evaluate JARC and New Freedom project applications is included in the Information and Application Instructions on ACOG’s website. If you would like a hard copy or large print version, or need additional information, please contact Kara Chiodo at 234-2264 or kchiodo@acogok.org.