While his highways flooded, Federal Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood managed to stay dry yesterday inside the 5 Points MARTA station, where he announced the distribution of $100 million in nationwide “clean-transport” grants distributed across 43 local transit agencies.

MARTA came out a big “winner” in this disbursement, getting over $10 million of the total money to build Georgia’s largest solar-panel installation at the Larado Bus Facility, just east of Decatur.

A bit more detail from Streetsblog…

Georgia: Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, $10,800,000. Laredo Bus Facility Solar Canopies: Provide shade structures with integrated, grid tied photovoltaic cells to be erected on the bus storage lot at the Laredo Bus Maintenance Facility. PV canopies will produce power and reduce temperatures underneath canopies. MARTA anticipates that the power produced by these photovoltaic panels will be sold to Georgia Power under their Distributed Generation Contract Program. The largest PV installation in Georgia.

Thanks to Ridgelandistan for the Streetsblog link!