Lawton launches process to secure federal funding for new LATS complex

Officials with Lawton’s mass transit system are seeking $25 million in federal funding to pay for system upgrades, including its first indoor transfer center.

Members of the City Transit Trust (a function of the City Council) granted permission for LATS and city staff to file an application for a $25 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration, funds that will help buy new fixed route buses as well as cover the majority of the cost to build a new transfer center, maintenance/storage and administrative offices complex. LATS has never had an indoor transfer center for passengers. Maintenance, storage and administrative functions are housed at space leased by LATS near the Public Works Yard at Southwest 6th Street and Bishop Road.

The grant is seeking 80 percent federal funding for those projects, with a 20 percent local match required. Under that formula, the grant seeks $17 million from federal sources, with a $3.4 million local match, for the new LATS complex, and $8 million from federal sources, with a $1.6 million local match, for new buses. But the 20 percent local match may not be the best case scenario.

“It should be less than that,” Community Services Director Charlotte Brown said, explaining the breakdown of federal/local funding could be 90/10.

Last Fall, Ward 4 Councilman George Gill said that because Lawton is a small and economically disadvantaged community, it could be in line for another 10 percent funding grant, which would drop the local requirement to 10 percent.

Brown said the application deadline closes Thursday, with the Federal Transit Administration to announce grant recipients this fall. FTA already provides grant funding to Lawton that covers half of LATS’ operating expenses and provides up to 80 percent for capital improvement projects.

The new facility would be the largest of those capital expenditures, LATS officials have said.

Wendel WD Architecture received the contract last summer to craft design plans for the transfer center, maintenance/storage facility and administrative offices to be located on 6 acres the City of Lawton owns between Southeast B and Southeast D avenues, Railroad Street to Larrance Street. Council members have said federal funding will determine what Lawton builds on that site. Without federal funding, Gill said the city would only build the indoor transfer center, leaving the remainder of LATS facilities at the site it leases in south Lawton.

The new complex is being designed for the new fixed route vehicles Hendrickson Transportation Group expects to begin adding to the fleet, and the City Transit Trust/City Council decided in January those vehicles would be hybrid buses, or those that use both electricity and traditional fuel.

LATS General Manager Ryan Landers said the federal government prefers low-emission and zero-emission vehicles when it awards grants for vehicle purchases, covering 83 percent of the cost of full electric buses and 75 percent of hybrid vehicles. While electric vehicles are deemed more “environmentally friendly,” Landers said hybrid buses are about $100,000 less than the $900,000-plus electric buses and there are more hybrid manufacturers, making the wait time between order and delivery shorter.