Kenosha will receive $2.3 million in federal funding to purchase seven new buses to replace existing buses for the Kenosha Area Transit System, Kenosha County Executive Jim Kreuser announced Friday.

The funding came as a result of the advocacy of County Planning & Development Director George E. Melcher, Kreuser said. Melcher, who serves on the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission’s Advisory Committee on Transportation System Planning and Programming for Kenosha, Racine Milwaukee and the Round Lake Beach Urbanized Areas, argued for part of the $15 million originally allocated for the KRM Commuter Link rail line to be used for Kenosha’s needs.

“Melcher pointed out, and rightfully so, that Kenosha is the ‘K’ in KRM and should not be left out of the process,” Kreuser said Friday.

The funding comes from $15 million in Federal Highway Administration Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program funding, which was made available for eligible transit projects within Kenosha, Milwaukee, and Racine counties as a result of the cancellation of the Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter rail project. A total of seven candidate projects were submitted, seeking a total of over $29 million in CMAQ funding.