COLUMBIA, MD — Thanks to a $400,000 Statewide Transit Innovation Grant, new sidewalk connections and bus pads will be constructed across Howard County. Existing bus shelters will be repaired and new ones will be installed with grant money, too.

The grant also allows the county to develop maintenance agreements for stops that are shared with the Regional Transportation Agency (RTA) bus system and consolidate eligible stops with RTA. The $400,000 grant to Howard County is one of eight Statewide Transit Innovation Grants totaling $1,481,190 awarded to Baltimore City and five other Maryland counties for projects designed to improve transit services.