5311 Rural Public Transportation Program

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The Section 5311 grant program's goals are to address the mobility needs of Arizona's rural population by

  • enhancing access to health care, shopping, education, employment, public services and recreation.
  • assisting local communities in building effective transit services in rural areas.

Annually, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) allocates federal funds for the Section 5311 grant program. These funds are apportioned to the state on a formula basis, providing funding to support the administrative, operating and capital costs of public transit services in rural areas. The state has the primary responsibility to provide for the fair and equitable distribution of funds to qualified applicants. In Arizona, the ADOT's Multimodal Planning Division manages the Section 5311 grant program. Funding is provided to counties, cities, towns and American Indian tribes to operate transit systems at the local level. Approximately 3.1 million miles of transportation service are provided annually to more than 968,000 passengers. Over 190,000 hours of service are provided by these systems.

Funds may be used for public transit services operating

  • within small urban and rural communities.
  • among small urban and rural communities.
  • between small urban and rural communities and urbanized areas (cities of 50,000 or more).

Funds are distributed annually through a competitive application process. The application process is kicked off with a series of workshops and webinars that provide guidance on the process in September/October. Applications are submitted in December, and awards are generally made in July of each year. The program renews every federal fiscal year (Oct. 1 of each year).

To provide our 5311 recipients with the most responsive customer service as well as work toward the growth of the rural transit program across the state, ADOT has a regionally focused approach to managing the 5311 program. This approach has resulted in two distinct regions in the state, each with its own project manager: northwest and southeast (see map for area contacts).

ADOT strongly encourages coordination of services to facilitate the most efficient use of federal, state and local resources. Our goal is to support the development of a statewide, multimodal transportation system that is economically efficient and environmentally sound.