Public transportation is a necessity in Phoenix, and the city will soon find relief when it comes to purchasing buses. The United Transportation and Federal Transit Administration is giving Phoenix transit $2.6 million dollars to fund buses that need to be replaced.

According to Phoenix’s acting public transit director, Ken Kesler, the money, along with the 15 percent local match “will leverage local funds and allow us to buy approximately six new buses.”

Kesler has received a timeline on when the city should see the grant.

“A month and a half to probably two and a half months to go through the online system of actually getting the funds obligated and placement available for us to draw down to spend.”

The new buses will be vital to the Phoenix transportation authority, which is running buses for large amounts of time.

“Longer service days both earlier in the morning and later at night and we’re putting up a lot more miles on the vehicles, so they’re reaching their mileage useful life a lot quicker than they had previously,” says Kesler.

Many of the buses currently in use go back more than a decade.

“We have a number of newer fleet that we’ve been buying since 2013. However, we still have some buses that go back to 2007 and earlier.”

The grant money will be helpful to the city, and, according to public officials, this won’t be the last time they pursue grant money to supply Phoenix’s transportation needs.