× Thanks for reading! Log in to continue. Enjoy more articles by logging in or creating a free account. No credit card required. Log in Sign up {{featured_button_text}}

A proposed bus rapid transit line would improve Omahans’ access to jobs and education, while boosting the city’s economy, the head of the U.S. Department of Transportation predicted Monday.

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, in Omaha to tout a $15 million federal grant for the new bus line, called the proposal visionary. He said it fit the administration’s desire for projects that can demonstrate that they improve lives by improving people’s connections to opportunity.

The Metro transit agency’s proposed bus line “does exactly that,” Foxx said.

He noted that 16 percent of people who live within a quarter mile of the proposed route do not have access to cars and that the route would connect to such employment centers as Mutual of Omaha, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Children’s Hospital & Medical Center and Methodist Hospital, as well as the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

The $15 million is part of $600 million the Transportation Department plans to award across the country in the 2014 TIGER (Transportation Investment Generation Economic Recovery) grant program. The program is rooted in President Barack Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus legislation.

Foxx is making a series of visits to cities that won grants.