LEWISTON — Plans for a $900,000 Twin Cities’ bus wash didn’t make the cut for a federal grant, officials learned Tuesday.

“Without the federal funding, this isn’t going to get done,” said Deputy City Administrator Phil Nadeau, a member of the Lewiston-Auburn Transit Committee. “It doesn’t mean it’s done forever, but it’s certainly done for this fiscal year.”

The Transit Committee had hoped to build a large, vehicle-washing facility somewhere in the city with the help of a Federal Transit Authority State of Good Repair grant. Lewiston-Auburn’s request was one of eight submitted to the FTA through the Maine Department of Transportation.

Four of the transit grants filed through the MDOT were approved, for a total of $1.9 million. All involved replacing old vehicles or repairing vehicles or facilities:

* Cumberland County’s Regional Transportation Program, which provides van service to the elderly and disabled, received $612,000 to replace vehicles.

* Western Maine Transportation received $388,000 to replace vehicles.

* Waldo Community Action Partners, an organization in Belfast, Bangor, August, Waterville and Rockland, received $180,000  to replace vehicles.

* The Aroostook Transportation System received $735,160 to do maintenance work and repairs on a vehicle maintenance garage and to replace vehicles.

The Greater Portland Transit District was given $2 million under a different application to the FTA’s grant to replace buses. That district filed its application directly to the FTA.

The Lewiston-Auburn Transit Committee and the South Portland bus service each had requested federal grant money to build a bus-washing facility; neither was successful.

Marsha Bennett, transit coordinator for the Lewiston-Auburn Transit Committee, said the facility would have added years of service to the buses in the Citylink fleet by giving crews a way to wash road salt and calcium chloride off the buses’ undercarriages.

“That briny stuff they put on the roads just really sticks to everything and we have no good way of getting it off,” Bennett said. “So, it would definitely have added life to the vehicles. It would make bus maintenance much easier because they could get under the vehicles and see what they’re looking at.”

Lewiston’s Public Works and Fire Department fleet would have been able to use it as well, and the city could have made the facility available to other Androscoggin County governments for a fee.

The grant’s rules would have required a 20 percent local match, meaning the Transit Committee would have had to come up with $180,000. The FTA grant would have paid the remaining $720,000.

The Auburn City Council declined to participate, but the Lewiston City Council had agreed to pay the entire $180,000 out of its capital improvement bond package.

Lewiston Finance Director Heather Hunter said the city’s bond package is scheduled to go up for sale early in 2013. The City Council could remove the $180,000 from the bond or keep the money in and use it for some other capital project.

“The good news is, we have not issued the bond yet, so it’s not a huge issue,” Hunter said. “We have time to respond.”

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