Federal Transit Formula Grants obligations in the District of Columbia

Eight awards carry more than two billion dollars

This tie keeps USAspending rows where CFDA 20.507 meets District of Columbia place of performance. The dollar book is $2,057,360,847. The award count is 8. Formula transit assistance often posts as a small number of large urbanized-area grants rather than thousands of project-level actions. The join still does not prove that the District received the money because of congestion, farebox recovery, or a particular capital plan this packet does not list.

CFDA 20.507 is the Federal Transit Formula Grants line in the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance. Recipients are typically transit agencies and designated recipients. This packet does not name those recipients or split the 8 rows by bus, rail, or preventive-maintenance object class. Correlation is not causation.

WMATA board minutes, National Transit Database ridership, and District DOT capital budgets are other files. They are not this extract. A reader who treats $2,057,360,847 as the District’s entire transportation budget has left the CFDA-by-state definition. The 8 figure is a record count, including modifications in the extract, not a count of routes or stations.

What the implied mean does and does not say

Eight awards under $2,057,360,847 imply a mean near $257,170,106 per award. That quotient is expected for urban formula transit but remains a blend. One large multi-year grant can dwarf smaller amendments. The packet has no median and no year-by-year split.

Low award counts with high dollars are a signature of formula block assistance, not evidence of a single construction contract. Cite both columns. USAspending.gov is the source; SpendingVault does not recast the mean as a typical bus-purchase invoice.

The District’s 20.507 cell versus parent rollups

The District of Columbia state hub stacks every program with performance coded to DC. Federal Transit Formula Grants is one line in that stack. $2,057,360,847 is not the District’s all-agency obligation total. The nationwide CFDA 20.507 page includes every urbanized area in every state, so it is not this cell either.

Place-of-performance for a regional transit grant can sit on the District even when service crosses Maryland and Virginia. This packet does not reallocate regional miles. Read the overlay as a coding view of 8 awards.

Obligations are not farebox or outlays

The $2,057,360,847 figure is an obligation sum. Cash drawn down on formula transit grants can trail the obligation. SpendingVault does not publish a 20.507-in-DC outlay total here. Mixing ridership or fare-recovery ratios with this award file leaves the USAspending series.

Cite the join as CFDA 20.507 × District of Columbia, $2,057,360,847, 8 awards, obligations only.

Tables behind the tie

The District × Federal Transit Formula Grants overlay is the table view. Recipient slices on that hub still sum toward $2,057,360,847 on 8 awards. The District spending page and the CFDA 20.507 program page are the parents. The District programs index and the ties index list other program–place pairs on the same basis.

None of those links convert the cell into vehicle-revenue hours or into outlays this packet omits.

What a DC transit formula join is not

Federal Transit Formula Grants in the District of Columbia are not a score of Metro reliability, not a count of bus miles, and not the District Department of Transportation’s capital budget. The $2,057,360,847 figure is the CFDA 20.507 × DC cell on USAspending.gov. Eight awards describe how the catalog line was filed, not how many projects a board approved. A regional compact that crosses Maryland and Virginia can still code place of performance to the District; this packet does not re-split those miles.

Readers sometimes stack this cell with highway or airport catalog numbers and call the sum “transportation spending in DC.” That stack is a different query. Keep 20.507 and the District together, keep the obligation label, and keep the 8-award count. Later bulk files can revise both dollars and the record count. The overlay is the live table; this page is a packet snapshot of the join.

Questions

How much Federal Transit Formula Grant spending is in DC?

USAspending.gov shows $2,057,360,847 in CFDA 20.507 obligations coded to the District of Columbia across 8 awards. The join uses the program number and DC place of performance. The total is obligations, not outlays.

Why are there only 8 awards for more than $2 billion?

Formula transit assistance often posts as a few large designated-recipient grants. The extract counts 8 award records tagged to CFDA 20.507 and the District. The implied mean is about $257,170,106 per award from the two packet facts. That mean is not a typical invoice.

Is $2.06 billion the District’s full federal spending?

No. $2,057,360,847 is only the Federal Transit Formula Grants cell. Other CFDA programs with DC place of performance sit on the statewide hub. CFDA 20.507 nationwide is not limited to the District.

Do these obligations equal cash spent on Metro?

No. $2,057,360,847 is an obligation sum. Outlays are a different USAspending series. The packet does not identify WMATA or any other recipient by name.