City pursuing federal grant for maintenance facility

In the spring of 2024, the sole governing body of Charlottesville Area Transit agreed to try out both battery-electric and hydrogen-electric propulsion systems for future buses. City Council reached their decision after a long process.

Since FY2016, the United States Department of Transportation has offered grants through the Low or No Emission Grant program. On May 15, the agency announced a new round with $1.5 billion in funds. You can learn more in a webinar from June 4, 2025.

Charlottesville Area Transit is seeking to apply for funds to help pay for new space to accommodate both alternative fuel methods at its headquarters on Avon Street Extended.

“If we’re going to move our transition to emissions, our maintenance facility has to be up and running and be able to take power, whether it’s battery electric or hydrogen,” said CAT Director Garland Williams at the June 17 meeting of the Charlottesville-Albemarle MPO-Tech Committee.

Williams said the CAT operations are currently on a six acre property but the City of Charlottesville owns another three adjacent acres and there’s another parcel that might be acquired.

The firm Kimley-Horn has put together a plan for a 25,500 square foot maintenance building with five bays for single bus bays and two for “articulated” buses. That means they bend. This would be the first phase of an overall expansion costing $37.7 million.

Williams told the MPO-Tech Committee that CAT is working with the Virginia Department of Public Transportation on funding to acquire two battery-electric vehicles. Right now there’s no place to charge them.

The full MPO Policy Board will take up the matter on June 25.

Before you go: This story was originally posted in the June 24, 2025 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. The posting here two months later on August 27, 2025 shows some of the pitfalls of this particular way of producing content. The audio wasn’t very good so I ended up not producing it for a radio version. It’s all a blur and a whirlwind, but I’m glad to try to get to do the work.