**GAO-12-637SP**                      Published: Jun 06, 2012. Publicly Released: Jul 10, 2012.                  

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Skip to Highlights

## Highlights

## What GAO Found

This is an E-supplement to GAO-12-593. This e-supplement presents the results of GAO's Web-based survey of state departments of transportation (DOTs) about their perspectives on the benefits and challenges of provisions meant to expedite highway projects established in the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) and practices the state DOTs have implemented on their own to expedite highway projects. SAFETEA-LU, enacted in August 2005, established a number of provisions to help expedite highway projects, including streamlining some portions of the environmental review process, allowing states to assume greater environmental review responsibilities under certain conditions, and establishing pilot programs that permitted delegation of some authority from the federal government to states.

## Supplemental Material

### Background

This e-supplement presents the results of GAO's Web-based survey of state departments of transportation (DOTs) about their perspectives on the benefits and challenges of provisions meant to expedite highway projects established in the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) and practices the state DOTs have implemented on their own to expedite highway projects. SAFETEA-LU, enacted in August 2005, established a number of provisions to help expedite highway projects, including streamlining some portions of the environmental review process, allowing states to assume greater environmental review responsibilities under certain conditions, and establishing pilot programs that permitted delegation of some authority from the federal government to states.

The survey was administered to state DOTs in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. For reporting purposes, we use the term states to refer to all 52 departments surveyed. We received completed responses from all departments surveyed. This e-supplement includes the questions asked and a summary of the answers given. Responses to open-ended questions requiring a narrative response are not included in this document.

A more detailed discussion of our objectives, scope, and methodology is contained in our report, Highway Projects: Some Federal and State Practices to Expedite Completion Show Promise, GAO-12-593. We administered the survey from November 2011 to February 2012 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

### Contents

 

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### Copyright

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## GAO Contacts

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## Topics

Transportation

Highway projectsTransportationEnvironmental reviewCopyrightStatutory limitationConstruction