The Regional Transportation District will receive an $8.5 million injection from a recent settlement with automaker Volkswagen, the Colorado Department of Transportation has announced.

The funds will go toward the metro Denver transit agency’s purchase of 15 battery electric buses and chargers, CDOT said.

In all, Colorado will receive about $68 million from the Volkswagen Settlement Trust, established due to emissions violations.

So far, nearly $14 million has been awarded to six transit agencies in the state via CDOT’s Division of Transit & Rail’s Settlement Alt-fuel Bus Replacement Program, “which incentivizes agencies to replace conventional fuel buses with alternative fuel vehicles,” according to CDOT.

Those funds will go toward the purchase of 28 new buses – predominately electric, but also one propane bus and one compressed natural gas bus. The buses will serve Boulder, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, Eagle County and Gunnison Valley, in addition to RTD’s metro-Denver territory.

The state is getting more than $78.7 million from the $14.7 billion nationwide settlement of federal claims against the German automaker, whose diesel-engine software disabled emission controls, turning them on only when a vehicle was being tested.

This caused the release of thousands of tons of nitrogen oxide emissions measured at nine to 38 times the U.S. limit.