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U.S. Department of Transportation U.S. Department of Transportation Icon United States Department of Transportation United States Department of Transportation

2020 Census: Resources and Information

FTA bases annual apportionments for transit formula funding on U.S. Census data, which the U.S. Census Bureau publishes every 10 years. The 2020 Census urban area delineations can have substantial impacts to FTA grant recipients. The effects of the new Census boundaries will be reflected in FTA’s FY 2024 apportionments. FY 2023 apportionments will be unaffected.

What’s New

  • On April 4, 2024, FTA announced $20.5 billion in federal funding available to support public transportation throughout the country, the latest tranche of support made possible thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The funding to states, urbanized areas and tribal governments, detailed in Apportionment Tables, is based on statutory formulas. There are two changes in Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 that impact apportionment amounts.
  • On Friday, December 7, 2023 FTA updated its Transit Award Management System (TrAMS) to include new and updated urbanized areas (UZAs) resulting from the 2020 Census. The Summary of 2020 Census Changes in TrAMS document provides an overview of the changes made in TrAMS, as well as the UZAs impacted by each type of change.
  • On September 12, 2023, the Census Bureau published a Federal Register notice correcting the list of urban areas and modifying the population, housing, and land area of a small number of urban areas where a processing error was discovered. This publication includes official notice of the changes to San Francisco—Oakland, CA/ San Rafael—Novato, CA, Atlanta, GA/ Gainesville, GA, and New Orleans, LA/ Laplace—Lutcher—Gramercy, LA.
  • On June 5, 2023, FTA and FHWA announced the Transportation Management Areas from the 2020 Census in the Federal Register.

FTA Resources

2020 Census Changes

FTA Program Requirements 

TrAMS Updates

National Transit Database

Additional Resources

Past Events

Other Federal Resources 

Census Bureau

Federal Highway Administration