The federal government’s fiscal year 2011 budget, released this week, has good news for Connecticut’s Hartford-New Britain Busway and New York City’s Nostrand Avenue Select Bus Service. Both were recommended for funds from the Federal Transit Administration’s New Starts and Small Starts program in the upcoming year.

For ConnDOT Commissioner Joe Marie, this is a triumph. Connecticut is now poised to win a “full funding grant agreement” from the FTA, a multi-year agreement that will guarantee hundreds of millions of federal dollars for the busway. ConnDOT’s application seeks $275.3 million, with the federal budget recommending an award of $45 million towards that amount this year. ConnDOT intends to use this grant and other federal funds to cover about 80% of the cost of the $570 million project. If Connecticut does win the grant agreement, expected in the spring, Marie will have turned around not one, but two transit projects that had been stalled for years. The New Haven-Springfield Rail Line received money from the federal high-speed rail program last month.

New York City will receive $28 million for a new Select Bus Service route on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn that will connect nine subway lines and the LIRR. As TSTC’s Kate Slevin told Streetsblog earlier this week, this is another reason for local officials to get behind the project. “We’re living in a time where money for all services, including transit, is scarce,” she said. “Elected officials along the corridor should not look a gift horse in the mouth.”