United States General Accounting Office

GAO Report to Congressional Committees

April 1999 MASS TRANSIT

FTA’s Progress in

Developing and

Implementing a New

Starts Evaluation

Process

GAO/RCED-99-113

GAO United States

General Accounting Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

Resources, Community, and

Economic Development Division

B-280884 

April 26, 1999

The Honorable Phil Gramm

Chairman

The Honorable Paul S. Sarbanes

Ranking Minority Member

Committee on Banking, Housing,

 and Urban Affairs

United States Senate

The Honorable Bud Shuster

Chairman

The Honorable James Oberstar

Ranking Democratic Member

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

House of Representatives

Since the early 1970s, the federal government has provided a large share of

the nation’s capital investment in urban mass transportation. Much of this

investment has come through the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA)

“new starts” program, which funds major new rail, bus, and trolley transit

projects that use separate and exclusive rights-of-way. In the last 5 years,

this program has provided state and local transit agencies with about

$3.8 billion to help design and construct such projects throughout the

country.

The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21),1

 enacted in

June 1998, authorizes $8.2 billion for new starts transit projects through

fiscal year 2003.2

 However, FTA has already entered into full funding grant

agreements totaling $3.73 billion for 14 projects under construction.3

 The

remaining $4.47 billion falls far short of the $12.1 billion FTA estimates will

be needed to construct 42 additional projects currently in the preliminary

engineering and final design phases. FTA also expects that over $40 billion

in federal funding will be requested to fund approximately 100 projects

currently in the early planning stages. To prioritize funding, TEA-21 directs

FTA to evaluate, rate, and recommend potential new starts projects on the

1

P. L. 105-178.

2

$6.1 million of these funds is “guaranteed,” that is, subject to a procedural mechanism designed to

ensure that minimum amounts of funding are provided each year.

3

A full funding grant agreement establishes the terms and conditions of federal financial participation

in the project and the maximum amounts of federal new starts financial assistance for the project. FTA

considers projects for full funding grant agreements after they have progressed from the initial

planning and preliminary engineering phases to the final design and construction phases.

Page 1 GAO/RCED-99-113 Mass Transit
B-280884 

basis of specific financial and project justification criteria. TEA-21 also

requires FTA to issue regulations for the evaluation and rating process.

TEA-21 also requires GAO to report by April 30, 1999, and annually thereafter,

on FTA’s processes and procedures for evaluating, rating, and

recommending new starts transit projects for federal funding and on FTA’s

implementation of these processes and procedures. As agreed with your

offices, this report discusses (1) the status of FTA’s efforts to develop and

implement the evaluation and rating processes and procedures, (2) how

FTA implemented the TEA-21 requirements for evaluating, rating, and

recommending projects, and (3) open issues that FTA needs to resolve to

fully satisfy TEA-21 requirements.

Results in Brief FTA has made substantial progress in developing and implementing a new

starts evaluation and rating process, as required by the Transportation

Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21). FTA had already revised its new

starts evaluation process, since the criteria and most of the factors that

TEA-21 requires FTA to consider while applying the criteria were also

contained in the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991

(ISTEA). In 1997, FTA first applied these criteria for its fiscal year 1999

project evaluations. In 1998, FTA expanded its evaluation process to

include the TEA-21 requirement to rate projects as either highly

recommended, recommended, or not recommended and to provide

individual ratings on each criterion.

The evaluation process FTA followed to prepare its fiscal year 2000 new

starts report, issued on March 23, 1999, uses ratings based upon specific

financial and project justification criteria to build toward an overall

project rating. FTA uses this rating information in deciding which projects

will receive full funding grant agreements and to make funding

recommendations to the Congress in its annual new starts report.

While FTA has implemented a new starts evaluation and rating process for

fiscal year 2000 that addressed TEA-21 requirements, it has not issued final

regulations on the evaluation and rating process, as required by the

legislation. FTA issued a proposed rule on April 7, 1999, and plans to issue

final regulations in the summer of 1999.

Background TEA-21 requires that before FTA may approve a grant or loan for a proposed

new starts project, it must determine that the proposed project is based

Page 2 GAO/RCED-99-113 Mass Transit
B-280884 

upon the results of an alternatives analysis4 and preliminary engineering

and justified by a comprehensive review of the proposed project’s mobility

improvements, environmental benefits, cost-effectiveness, and operating

efficiencies.5

 Under TEA-21, in applying these justification criteria, FTA must

consider a number of factors, including land-use policies and congestion

relief.

In addition, a project must be supported by an acceptable degree of local

financial commitment, including evidence of stable and dependable

financing sources to construct, maintain, and operate the system or

extension. In evaluating this commitment, FTA is required to determine

whether (1) the proposed project plan provides for contingencies in order

to cover unanticipated cost increases; (2) each proposed local source of

capital and operating funds is stable, reliable, and available within the

timetable for the proposed project; and (3) local resources are available to

operate the overall proposed mass transportation system without requiring

a reduction in existing mass transportation services. FTA is also required to

consider a number of additional factors when evaluating a project’s local

financial commitment.

While these evaluation requirements existed prior to the enactment of

TEA-21, TEA-21 requires FTA, for the first time, to (1) develop a rating for each

criterion as well as an overall rating of highly recommended,

recommended, or not recommended for each project and to include this

information in its annual new starts report due to the Congress each

February, and (2) issue regulations on the manner in which it will evaluate

and rate potential new starts projects. TEA-21’s deadline for the regulations

was October 7, 1998.

TEA-21 also directs FTA to use these evaluations and ratings in approving

projects’ advancement to the preliminary engineering and final design

phases and in deciding which projects will be recommended to the

Congress for funding or receive full funding grant agreements. In addition,

TEA-21 requires FTA to issue a supplemental report to its annual report to

the Congress each August that updates information on projects that have

advanced to the preliminary engineering or final design phases since the

annual report.

4

An alternatives analysis is a study performed by local transportation planning officials that evaluates

all reasonable alternatives for addressing a transportation problem in a given corridor and identifies a

locally preferred solution.

5

Significant provisions regarding new starts projects, including criteria and factors for FTA’s

consideration, are found at 49 U.S.C. 5309.

Page 3 GAO/RCED-99-113 Mass Transit
B-280884 

FTA Has Made

Substantial Progress

in Developing and

Implementing a New

Starts Evaluation

Process That Reflects

TEA-21 Requirements

FTA has made substantial progress in developing and implementing an

evaluation process that includes the individual criterion ratings and overall

project ratings required by TEA-21. Before TEA-21 was enacted in June 1998,

FTA had already taken significant steps to revise its new starts evaluation

process, since most of the evaluation requirements contained in TEA-21

were introduced by ISTEA.

6

 In March 1999, FTA issued its fiscal year 2000

new starts report, which included project evaluations and ratings based

upon the revised process.

Table 1 highlights key dates in the chronology of FTA’s development of its

new starts evaluation process.

Table 1: Chronology of FTA’s Revised

New Starts Evaluation Process Date Action

12/91 ISTEA expanded the criteria for assessing new starts

projects.

09/94 FTA proposed revised measures for assessing projects in

policy paper.

12/96 FTA issued a notice describing measures to be used for

the fiscal year 1999 assessments.

09/97 FTA used technical guidance and outreach sessions to

describe how the criteria would be reported and applied

for the fiscal year 1999 new starts report.

05/98 FTA issued the fiscal year 1999 new starts report based

upon the revised criteria.

06/98 TEA-21 required ratings on each criterion and overall

project ratings.

09/98 FTA used technical guidance and outreach sessions to

describe how projects would be rated for the fiscal year

2000 new starts report.

01/99 FTA issued the fiscal year 1999 new starts supplemental

report.

03/99 FTA rated projects as required by TEA-21 in the fiscal year

2000 report.

In response to ISTEA’s expansion of the evaluation criteria, FTA issued a

policy paper in September 1994 proposing its overall assessment strategy

and criteria measures. FTA circulated this paper among interested parties,

including state and local governments, transit agencies, metropolitan

planning organizations, and consultants. In December 1996, after

6

ISTEA expanded the statutory requirement that a new starts project be cost-effective and supported

by an adequate degree of local financial commitment by requiring, among other things, that a project

be “justified” on the basis of a “comprehensive review of its mobility improvements, environmental

benefits, cost-effectiveness, and operating efficiencies.” ISTEA also identified specific considerations

such as local land-use policies and patterns to be taken into account when evaluating candidate

projects.

Page 4 GAO/RCED-99-113 Mass Transit
B-280884 

reviewing the comments received, FTA issued a notice describing the

revised criteria it would use in 1997 to evaluate candidate new starts

projects for fiscal year 1999. The notice also introduced measures for

mobility improvements, environmental benefits, operating efficiencies,

cost-effectiveness, and transit-supportive land use.7 FTA’s existing process

for assessing and rating a project’s local financial commitment did not

change.

In September 1997, FTA issued technical guidance on the ISTEA new starts

criteria to assist project sponsors in submitting the information and

documentation that the agency needed to prepare the fiscal year 1999

evaluations. The guidance identified the new starts criteria, documented

the reporting procedures for the criteria, and outlined how FTA would

apply each of the criteria in evaluating candidate projects. For example, in

evaluating mobility improvements, FTA said it would look at the expected

savings in travel time. FTA also conducted workshops at which the new

criteria and reporting requirements were discussed in detail with grantees.

FTA’s fiscal year 1999 new starts report, submitted to the Congress in

May 1998, included evaluations that were based upon these criteria.

The supplemental report to the fiscal year 1999 annual report, required by

TEA-21, was issued in January 1999. That report did not include the

individual ratings on each criterion and overall project ratings required by

TEA-21 because FTA had not yet incorporated these requirements at the time

the report was prepared. According to FTA officials, the fiscal year 2000

supplemental report will include these ratings.

Noting that TEA-21 made no changes to the existing new starts criteria and

added relatively few factors for consideration in applying the criteria, FTA

completed the fiscal year 2000 project evaluations using its existing new

starts criteria. However, as described in more detail in the next section of

this report, FTA revised its evaluation process to provide for the individual

criterion ratings and overall ratings required by TEA-21. In September 1998,

at the start of the fiscal year 2000 process, FTA used letters and a series of

outreach sessions to explain to its grantees how it planned to rate projects

for the fiscal year 2000 evaluations. It also issued an addendum to its

technical guidance to assist grantees in submitting the required

information for the fiscal year 2000 process. In its fiscal year 2000 new

starts report submitted to the Congress on March 23, 1999, FTA provided

evaluations, individual criterion ratings, and an overall project rating for

7

FTA included local land use among the project justification criteria because it believes that

transit-supportive land-use policies reduce the risk of a project and therefore reflect whether the

project will be successful or not.

Page 5 GAO/RCED-99-113 Mass Transit
B-280884 

39 projects in the final design and preliminary engineering phases.8 FTA

rated 8 projects as highly recommended, 11 projects as recommended, and

20 projects as not recommended. The report also included funding

recommendations for 11 of the 39 projects that FTA rated.

FTA’s Evaluation and

Rating Process

Assigns Individual

Ratings on TEA-21

Criteria and Provides

for Overall Project

Ratings

FTA’s current new starts evaluation process, which it followed to prepare

its fiscal year 2000 new starts report, assigns candidate projects individual

ratings for each TEA-21 criterion in order to assess each project’s

justification and local financial commitment. The process also assigns an

overall rating for each project. FTA considers these overall ratings in

deciding which projects will be recommended for funding or receive full

funding grant agreements.

As figure 1 illustrates, FTA evaluates and rates projects in three stages.

First, FTA evaluates and rates projects on each new starts criterion.

Second, FTA uses these individual ratings on each criterion to assign

summary project justification and local financial commitment ratings for

each project. Finally, FTA then combines these two ratings to assign an

overall project rating.

8

The report included information on three additional projects that FTA did not rate because of

insufficient information.

Page 6 GAO/RCED-99-113 Mass Transit
B-280884 

Figure 1: The FTA New Starts Evaluation and Rating Process

Local financial 

commitment

rating

Local

share

ratinga

Capital

finance plan

rating

Project

justification

rating

Mobility

improvements

rating

Environmental

benefits

rating

Operating

efficiencies

rating

Costeffectiveness

rating

Landuse

rating

Other

factorsb

Overall project

rating Stage 3

Stage 2

Stage 1 Operating

finance plan

rating

aThe local share is the percentage of a project’s capital cost to be funded from sources other than

new starts funding.

bAccording to FTA, this optional criterion gives grantees the opportunity to provide additional

information about a project that may contribute in determining the project’s overall success.

Source: FTA.

As figure 1 shows, FTA’s current process provides for individual ratings for

the four project justification criteria identified by TEA-21 (mobility

improvements, environmental benefits, operating efficiencies, and

cost-effectiveness) as well as for transit-supportive land-use policies.9

Similarly, to evaluate a project’s financial commitment, the project is rated

on its capital and operating finance plans and the local share of project

costs. According to FTA, the process also takes into account the factors for

consideration identified in TEA-21, such as congestion relief. For example,

FTA considers this factor in evaluating and rating a project’s

cost-effectiveness.

To develop and assign individual ratings on each criterion, FTA holds a

series of meetings to review and analyze information submitted by project

sponsors. For the fiscal year 2000 process, participants in these meetings

included officials and staff from FTA’s Offices of Planning, Budget and

9

In rating projects on this criterion, FTA considers such factors as existing land use, the containment

of sprawl, and transit-supportive policies and zoning.

Page 7 GAO/RCED-99-113 Mass Transit
B-280884 

Policy, and Program Management, and contractors who made the initial

financial and land-use assessments. On the basis of an analysis of the

documentation submitted by project sponsors, FTA assigns each project a

descriptive rating of high, medium-high, medium, low-medium or low for

each project justification and local financial commitment criterion.

Appendix I summarizes the measures that FTA uses in applying the criteria

to develop these ratings.

Once the individual criterion ratings are completed, FTA assigns summary

ratings of project justification and local financial commitment by

combining the individual criterion ratings. In developing the summary

project justification ratings, FTA gives the most weight to the criteria for

transit-supportive land use, cost-effectiveness, and mobility

improvements. For the summary local financial commitment rating, the

project’s capital plan is given the most consideration. In assigning a

summary financial commitment rating, FTA will not give a project a rating

higher than low-medium if its capital finance plan received a low-medium

or low rating.

FTA combines these summary ratings to assign an overall project rating of

highly recommended, recommended, or not recommended. To receive the

highly recommended rating, a project must have summary ratings of at

least medium-high for project justification and local financial commitment.

To receive a rating of recommended, the project must have summary

ratings of at least medium. A project is rated as not recommended when

either summary rating is less than medium.

In its fiscal year 2000 new starts report, as noted previously, FTA rated 8

projects as highly recommended, 11 projects as recommended, and 20

projects as not recommended. Of the 20 projects rated as not

recommended, 18 received financial commitment ratings of less than

medium. In assigning overall project ratings, however, FTA emphasized the

continuous nature of project evaluation. Throughout the report, FTA

underscored the fact that as candidate projects proceed through the

project development process, information concerning costs, benefits, and

impacts will be refined. Consequently, FTA will update its ratings and

recommendations at least annually to reflect new information, changing

conditions, and refined financing plans.10 Thus, a project that received a

not recommended rating in the fiscal year 2000 report could receive a

higher rating in the fiscal year 2001 report to reflect project changes.

10FTA’s supplemental report issued each August will also update ratings for projects that have

advanced from alternatives analysis to preliminary engineering and from preliminary engineering to

final design since the annual report.

Page 8 GAO/RCED-99-113 Mass Transit
B-280884 

According to FTA, the overall project rating in the new starts report is

intended to reflect a project’s merits at a particular point in time and does

not translate directly into a funding recommendation or commitment in a

given year. In deciding which projects will be recommended for funding or

receive a full funding grant agreement, FTA considers projects with an

overall rating of recommended or better. However, some projects rated as

highly recommended or recommended may not be ready for funding

because they are still in the early stages of preliminary engineering. In

making funding recommendations, FTA gives first priority to projects with

existing grant agreements. After these projects are accounted for, priority

is given to projects that are ready to begin final design or construction.

In accordance with these funding principles, the President’s fiscal year

2000 budget and FTA’s fiscal year 2000 new starts report recommended

$962.72 million in funding for 25 projects. As table 2 shows, these

recommendations included $668.18 million for 14 projects currently under

construction,11 $216.11 million for seven projects expected to enter final

design by the beginning of fiscal year 2000,12 and $32 million for four

projects in the later stages of preliminary engineering. TEA-21 limits the

amount of new starts funds that can be used for activities other than final

design and construction to 8 percent of total new starts funding, or

$78.43 million for fiscal year 2000. After accounting for the $32 million for

the four recommended projects in preliminary engineering, $46.43 million

remains available for other projects currently in or approved to enter

preliminary engineering by the end of fiscal year 2000. FTA plans to allocate

the remaining $46.43 million on the basis of its review of funding

applications and project ratings. The seven remaining projects in

preliminary engineering that received overall ratings of recommended or

highly recommended but no funding recommendation in the fiscal year

2000 report would be eligible to seek this funding. Appendix II presents

the ratings and funding recommendations in FTA’s fiscal year 2000 new

starts report.

11These fourteen projects have existing full funding grant agreements.

12FTA expects all seven projects to be ready to negotiate full funding grant agreements by the end of

fiscal year 2000.

Page 9 GAO/RCED-99-113 Mass Transit
B-280884 

Table 2: FTA’s Fiscal Year 2000 New

Starts Funding Recommendations by

Project Phase

Dollars in millions

Fiscal year 2000

project phase

Number of

projects

Amount of proposed

funding

Percent of total

annual funding

Construction 14 $668.18 92%

Final design 7 $216.11

Preliminary engineering 4 $32 8%

$46.43 available for

other eligible projects

Total 25 $962.72 100%

FTA Needs to Issue

Regulations to Satisify

TEA-21 Requirements

While FTA has implemented a new starts evaluation process that addresses

the TEA-21 requirements, it still needs to issue final regulations to formalize

the process. FTA did not meet the TEA-21 deadline of October 7, 1998, for

issuing these regulations. According to FTA, priority was given to satisfying

the rating requirements in TEA-21 and issuing the fiscal year 2000 report. FTA

issued a notice of proposed rulemaking on April 7, 1999. The process

described in the proposed rule mirrors the process FTA used to prepare the

fiscal year 2000 report.

Comments on the proposed rule are due on July 6, 1999. FTA plans to issue

the final regulations in the summer of 1999. FTA has said that any changes

resulting from comments on the proposed rule will be incorporated into

the evaluation and rating process for the fiscal year 2001 annual report. We

will continue to monitor FTA’s efforts to implement TEA-21 and report our

results in our next annual report.

Agency Comments We provided the Department of Transportation with a draft of this report

for review and comment. We met with Federal Transit Administration

officials, including the Director for Policy Development and officials from

the Offices of Planning and of Budget and Policy. FTA agreed with the

report’s contents and provided us with some technical comments, which

we have incorporated where appropriate.

Scope and

Methodology

To address the issues discussed in this report, we reviewed the legislation

governing new starts transit projects, FTA’s annual new starts reports for

fiscal years 1999 and 2000, its technical guidance on the new starts criteria,

and other documentation by the agency of its processes and procedures

for evaluating projects. We also interviewed appropriate FTA headquarters

Page 10 GAO/RCED-99-113 Mass Transit
B-280884 

and regional officials, the contractors who conducted the financial and

land-use assessments, and selected grantees whose projects were assessed

in 1997 and 1998. In addition, we attended FTA’s outreach sessions, in

which officials explained the new TEA-21 requirements and how FTA

intended to meet these requirements. We also observed meetings at the

agency in which the project ratings on financial commitment and land use

were deliberated. We performed our work in accordance with generally

accepted government auditing standards from July 1998 through

April 1999.

We are sending copies of this report to the Honorable Rodney E. Slater,

Secretary of Transportation; the Honorable Gordon J. Linton,

Administrator, Federal Transit Administration; the Honorable Jacob Lew,

Director, Office of Management and Budget; and other interested parties.

We are also making copies available to others on request.

Page 11 GAO/RCED-99-113 Mass Transit
B-280884 

Major contributors to this report are listed in appendix III. Please call me

at (202) 512-2834 if you have any questions about this report.

Phyllis F. Scheinberg

Associate Director,

 Transportation Issues

Page 12 GAO/RCED-99-113 Mass Transit
Page 13 GAO/RCED-99-113 Mass Transit
Contents

Letter 1

Appendix I 

New Starts Criteria

and Related

Performance

Measures

16

Appendix II 

FTA’s Fiscal Year 2000

New Starts Ratings

and Funding

Recommendations

17

Appendix III 

Major Contributors to

This Report

20

Tables Table 1: Chronology of FTA’s Revised New Starts Evaluation

Process

4

Table 2: FTA’s Fiscal Year 2000 New Starts Funding

Recommendations by Project Phase

10

 Table I.1: Summary of New Starts Evaluation Criteria and

Performance Measures

16

Figure Figure 1: The FTA New Starts Evaluation and Rating Process 7

Abbreviations

FTA Federal Transit Administration

ISTEA Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act

TEA-21 Transportation Equity Act

Page 14 GAO/RCED-99-113 Mass Transit
Page 15 GAO/RCED-99-113 Mass Transit
Appendix I 

New Starts Criteria and Related

Performance Measures

Table I.1 presents a summary of each of the new starts criteria and the

related performance measures that the Federal Transit Administration

uses to appraise candidate new starts projects as part of its evaluation and

rating process.

Table I.1: Summary of New Starts

Evaluation Criteria and Performance

Measures

Criterion Performance measure

Mobility improvements •Change in hours of travel time

•Low-income households served by the system,

expressed in terms of the number of such households

within a half-mile of a project’s boarding points

Environmental benefits •Change in pollutant emissions

•Change in regional energy consumption, expressed in

British thermal units

•The Environmental Protection Agency’s air quality

designation for the region

Operating efficiencies Operating cost per passenger mile

Cost-effectiveness Incremental cost per incremental passenger

Transit-supportive land use •Existing land use

•Containment of sprawl

•Transit-supportive corridor policies

•Supportive zoning regulations

•Tools to implement land-use policies

•Performance of land-use policies

•Other land-use factors

Other factors Local policies, programs, and factors relevant to the

success of the project

Local financial commitment •Proposed local share of project costs

•Stability and reliability of capital financing

•Stability and reliability of operating funds

Source: FTA.

Page 16 GAO/RCED-99-113 Mass Transit
Appendix II 

FTA’s Fiscal Year 2000 New Starts Ratings

and Funding Recommendations

Dollars in millions

City/project Overall project rating

FY2000 recommended

funding

Existing full funding grant agreementsa

Atlanta - North Line Extension FFGA $45.14

Boston - Piers Transitway, Phase 1 FFGA 53.96

Denver - Southwest LRT FFGA 35.00

Houston - Regional Bus Plan FFGA 62.52

Los Angeles - MOS-3 Segments of Metro Rail FFGA 50.00

Maryland - MARC Extensions - Point of Rocks to Frederick FFGA 0.70

Northern New Jersey - Hudson-Bergen LRT FFGA 99.00

Portland - Westside LRT FFGA 11.06

Sacramento - South Corridor LRT FFGA 25.00

Salt Lake City - South LRT FFGA 37.93

San Francisco - BART to Airport FFGA 84.00

San Jose - Tasman LRT FFGA 31.87

San Juan - Tren Urbano FFGA 82.00

St. Louis - St. Clair County, Illinois LRT FFGA 50.00

Subtotal $668.18

Proposed full funding grant agreements

Dallas - North Central LRT Extension Recommended $70.00

Fort Lauderdale - Tri-Rail Commuter Rail Upgrade Highly recommended 20.00

Memphis - Medical Center Extension Recommended 15.11

Newark Rail Link (MOS-1) Highly recommended 12.00

Orlando - I-4 Central Florida LRT Project Highly recommended 44.00

Salt Lake City - Downtown Connector Not recommendedb 20.00

San Diego - Mission Valley East LRT Extension Highly recommended 35.00

Subtotal $216.11

Other projects in final design

Dallas – Ft. Worth – RAILTRAN, Phase 2 Recommended $0

Los Angeles - LOSSAN Rail Corridor Improvement Project Not recommended 0

New Orleans - Canal Streetcar Spine Not recommended 0

Tacoma-Seattle (Sounder) Commuter Rail Recommended 0

Subtotal $0

(continued)

Page 17 GAO/RCED-99-113 Mass Transit
Appendix II 

FTA’s Fiscal Year 2000 New Starts Ratings

and Funding Recommendations

Dollars in millions

City/project Overall project rating

FY2000 recommended

funding

Preliminary engineering

Baltimore - Central Corridor LRT Double Track Recommended $8.00

Minneapolis - Hiawatha Corridor Transitway Recommended 8.00

Raleigh-Durham - Research Triangle Regional Rail Recommended 8.00

Seattle-Sound Move - Link LRT Highly recommended 8.00

Available for other projects $46.43

Austin – Northwest/North Central Corridor Not rated

Boston - Piers Transitway, Phase 2 Not recommended

Chicago - Central Kane Corridor Recommended

Chicago - North Central Corridor Not recommended

Chicago - Southwest Corridor Highly recommended

Cincinnati - NE/I-71 Not recommended

Cleveland - Euclid Corridor Not recommended

Denver - Southeast Corridor Not recommended

Kansas City - Southtown LRT Not recommended

Las Vegas - Resort Corridor Not recommended

Little Rock - Junction Bridge/River Rail Not recommended

Miami - East/West Corridor Not recommended

Miami - North 27th Avenue Corridor Not recommended

New York City - LIRR East Side Access Not recommended

N. New Jersey (Hudson-Bergen MOS-2) Not rated

Norfolk - Virginia Beach Corridor Not recommended

Orange County - Irvine-Fullerton Corridor Recommended

Phoenix - Central Phoenix/East Valley Not recommended

Pittsburgh - Martin Luther King, Jr., E. Busway Extension Not recommended

Pittsburgh - Stage II LRT Reconstruction Not recommended

Portland - South/North Corridor Not recommended

San Diego - Mid Coast Corridor Highly recommended

San Diego - Oceanside Escondido Corridor Highly recommended

San Francisco – Bayshore - Third Street LRT Recommended

San Juan - Minillas Extension Not rated

Tampa - Tampa Regional Rail Not recommended

Washington, D.C. - Largo Extension Recommended

Subtotal $78.43

Total $962.72

(continued)

Page 18 GAO/RCED-99-113 Mass Transit
Appendix II 

FTA’s Fiscal Year 2000 New Starts Ratings

and Funding Recommendations

Dollars in millions

City/project Overall project rating

FY2000 recommended

funding

Ferry Capital Projects in Alaska or Hawaii (Section

5309(m)(5)(A)) 10.32

Oversight activities 7.35

Grand total $980.40

Legend

FFGA = full funding grant agreement

LIRR = Long Island Railroad

LRT = light rail transit

MOS = minimum operable segment

Note: Figures do not always add to totals because of rounding.

aProjects with FFGAs were not rated, since FTA had found the projects to be justified and have

adequate local financial commitments at the time the FFGAs were issued.

bThe Downtown Connector is a segment of the overall Salt Lake West-East light rail project that

FTA rated as not recommended. While FTA generally does not recommend funding for projects

that are rated as not recommended, it believes this segment of the project should be funded

because it will help meet the mass transportation needs of the 2002 Winter Olympics. In fiscal

year 1999, the Congress appropriated $5 million in new starts funds for the overall project.

Source: FTA’s FY 2000 New Starts Report.

Page 19 GAO/RCED-99-113 Mass Transit
Appendix III 

Major Contributors to This Report

Resources,

Community, and

Economic

Development

Division, Washington,

D.C.

Ron Stouffer, Assistant Director

Paul J. Bollea, Site Senior

Carol Ruchala, Site Senior

Atlanta Field Office Kirk Kiester, Evaluator-in-Charge

(348120) Page 20 GAO/RCED-99-113 Mass Transit
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