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If your bus looks shabby these days, it’s not your imagination.

Congressman Earl Blumenauer has requested $15.4 million from the House Committee on Appropriations for fiscal year 2011 to replace 45 of TriMet‘s oldest buses.

According to Mary Fetsch with TriMet, the buses being replaced are at least 20 years old with an average of 810,000 miles each. The industry standard, however, says that buses should only be run 15 years or to 650,000 miles.

In the past, TriMet operated buses over ten years old only for peak trips, but much of its fleet has aged past that mark, requiring TriMet to run old buses all day. This results in higher maintenance costs.

The new buses would have better emissions control, closed-circuit security cameras, air conditioning and ADA compliant lifts for the disabled.

TriMet has yet to receive any federal appropriations funding to replace its fleet. If it received the funding, the rest of the funding for the project, $3.85 million in TriMet General Fund revenues, would be provided by the transit agency.

TriMet earlier this year announced it would cut several bus lines and reduce frequency along other routes due to lagging revenues. Those changes are scheduled to take place in September.