On Jan. 13, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced the Obama Administration's plan to change how projects are selected to receive federal funding assistance through the Federal Transit Administration. Effective immediately, the FTA has rescinded restrictions that prioritized a calculation that compared the cost of a proposed project with how much the project would shorten commute times. Until new regulations are in place, the FTA will focus on the project's local financial commitment and justification. A project's justification analyzes its mobility improvements, environmental benefit, cost effectiveness, operating efficiencies, economic development effects and public transportation supportive land use policies.
In a letter to local governments, Secretary LaHood stated the administration's intention to change the regulatory framework to "give meaningful consideration to full range of benefits that transit can provide. These include not only mobility-oriented benefits such as transit travel time, but also important economic development, environmental, social, and congestion relief benefits."
Secretary LaHood went further in his remarks at the Transportation Research Board annual meeting: "We want to base our decisions on how much transit helps the environment, how much it improves development opportunities and how it makes our communities better places to live."
The proposed changes to the FTA process were taken in stride by the Metro Council: "This wider view of the benefits of transit reflect Metro's planning focus on moving people and goods while creating great communities," said Council President David Bragdon in response to the changes. "Although the region has been, and will continue to be, very good at delivering cost-effective transit projects, we've always known that a successful transit project relies on the interaction of smart land use, economic development, transportation choices and system access."
Councilor Collette, chair of the Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation, added that the region is well prepared for the new direction of the FTA: "Because of the work that we did this summer with the Regional High Capacity Transit System Plan, we've already set up our own framework to analyze and compare these criteria," she said. "We set up the framework independently based on our regional values to direct our efforts and priorities, but it's nice to see that that work and process will have collateral benefit when it comes time to submit federal funding requests."
The FTA plans to initiate a separate rulemaking process and invite public comment on ways to appropriately measure the benefits of transit investments.