The state awarded a $69 million grant Tuesday to Metro aimed at helping it speed up service on the Red and Purple lines at Union Station.

The lines end at the station, where trains must stop and switch direction. As anyone who’s waited for the train there will tell you, it can take a few minutes. But now Metro has nearly half of the $162 million it needs to expedite this process. The project will allow trains to continue on past Union Station and into a maintenance yard, where they will switch direction. This is expected to speed up the schedule considerably, more than halving the time between trains during peak hours. Without the end-of-the-line delay, Metro predicts 30 trains per hour will be able to pass through Union Station in both directions, with Red and Purple Line trains arriving as often as every four minutes. Currently, the trains arrive every 10 minutes during peak hours.

The California State Transportation Agency doled out a total of more than $390 million in grants to transit projects the agency expected to lower statewide CO2 emissions.

Metro also won $40 million for the construction of a rail station at LAX that will connect riders from the under-construction Crenshaw Line to a planned people mover system set to transform both the arrival and departure process at the notoriously congested airport. The grant money gives a nice boost to the project, which stands to get another $347 million if Metro’s ballot measure passes this November.

CalSTA estimates that the two projects will together reduce greenhouse emissions in the Los Angeles area by more than 1.5 million tons.

The Orange County Transportation Authority also received a $28 million grant to begin work on a new 4.15-mile streetcar system that would link Santa Ana to Garden Grove, with 12 stops along the way. As the Orange County Register reports, the money should help the county in a bid for federal funding expected to be awarded to the project later in the year.