13980 Federal Register / Vol. 72, No. 56 / Friday, March 23, 2007 / Notices 

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Federal Transit Administration 

Alternatives Analysis Discretionary 

Program 

AGENCY: Federal Transit Administration 

(FTA), DOT. 

ACTION: Notice of Funding Availability; 

Alternatives Analysis Discretionary 

Program. 

SUMMARY: This notice solicits proposals 

to compete for $12 million in Section 

5339 funds to support technical work 

conducted within an alternatives 

analysis, in which one of the 

alternatives is a major transit capital 

investment. Under this authority, FTA 

will allocate the available discretionary 

funding for alternatives analysis. This 

analysis will support technical work 

that will improve and expand the 

information available to decisionmakers considering potential New Starts 

and Small Starts funding. FTA will give 

priority to alternatives analyses that 

would add tasks to collect and analyze 

data on transit ridership patterns, the 

travel times of buses operating in mixed 

traffic, and/or other information on the 

current performance of the transit 

system. FTA will also give priority to 

proposals to develop and apply methods 

to estimate the time savings experienced 

by highway users that result from transit 

investments as well as proposals to 

develop and apply simplified travel 

forecasting approaches for Small Starts 

alternatives that cannot be addressed 

easily by the existing regional travel 

forecasting procedures. FTA encourages 

potential study sponsors to contact FTA 

to discuss the development of proposals 

under this section. 

DATES: Complete proposals must be 

received by the designated Federal 

Transit Administration contact listed in 

this notice by the close of business May 

22, 2007. 

ADDRESSES: Proposals may be submitted 

electronically through the Grants.Gov 

Web site or via e-mail to 

5339GrantApplication@dot.gov with the 

State and grantee name in the subject 

line. Applicants applying to Grants.Gov 

may also send an e-mail to 

5339GrantApplication@dot.gov to 

receive confirmation that FTA retrieved 

the application. FTA will reply via email within 3 business days to all emails received through 

5339GrantApplication@dot.gov. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Steve Lewis-Workman at the Federal 

Transit Administration, Office of 

Planning and Environment, by phone at 

202–366–1868 or by e-mail at 

steven.lewisworkman@dot.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Table of Contents 

I. General Program Information 

II. Proposal Review, Selection, and 

Notification 

III. Additional Program Information 

I. General Program Information 

A. Authority 

FTA has the authority to implement 

this program under the Safe, 

Accountable, Flexible, Efficient 

Transportation Equity Act—A Legacy 

for Users (SAFETEA–LU) amendments 

to Section 5339. FTA may allocate $6 

million from FY2006 and $6 million 

from FY2007. 

B. Background 

The ‘‘Revised Continuing 

Appropriations Resolution, 2007’’ (Pub. 

L. 110–05) enacted, February 15, 2007, 

made available $6 million in FY 2007 

funds to FTA for discretionary 

allocation. In addition, a balance of $6 

million of FY 2006 funding that was not 

allocated to specific projects in the FY 

2006 appropriations legislation is also 

available for discretionary award in FY 

2007, for a total of $12 million. 

The authorizing legislation allows for 

the Secretary of Transportation to make 

awards under this program at her 

discretion. These funds will be allocated 

for alternatives analysis activities 

selected from applications submitted in 

response to this notice. 

C. Eligible Applicants 

Section 5339 allows FTA to make 

grants and agreements, under criteria 

established by the Secretary, to States, 

authorities of the States, metropolitan 

planning organizations, and local 

governmental authorities to develop 

alternatives analyses as defined by 

section 5309(a)(1). Eligible study 

sponsors must be able to incorporate the 

results of this work into an ongoing 

alternatives analysis study or must 

commit to initiate an alternatives 

analysis study within 12 months of the 

grant approval. 

D. Eligible Expenses 

FTA will allocate available 

discretionary funding for alternatives 

analysis to support technical work that 

will improve and expand the 

information available to decisionmakers considering funding for 

potential New Starts and Small Starts 

projects. FTA will give priority to 

alternatives analyses that would add 

one or more of the following tasks to: 

(1) Collect and analyze data on transit 

ridership patterns and use the results to 

validate travel forecasting models. 

(2) Collect and analyze the travel 

times of buses operating in mixed 

traffic, and other information on the 

current performance of the transit 

system, and use the results to determine 

the user benefits attributable to better 

reliability of fixed guideway projects. 

(3) Develop and apply simplified 

travel forecasting approaches for Small 

Starts alternatives. 

(4) Develop improved methods for 

estimating the highway system user 

travel time savings associated with 

public transit alternatives. 

FTA will consider proposals for other 

areas of technical work that can better 

develop information about the costs and 

benefits of projects seeking New or 

Small Starts funding. 

E. Proposal Evaluation Criteria and 

Other Considerations 

FTA’s intent in allocating funding for 

alternatives analysis is to support tasks 

that will improve and expand the 

information available to decisionmakers considering funding for 

proposed New Starts and Small Starts 

projects. Alternatives analyses must be 

documented in the Unified Planning 

Work Program (UPWP) of the 

metropolitan planning organization 

(MPO) for the area, with a commitment 

to begin the alternatives analysis study 

within 12 months of grant approval, or 

already underway. Proposals will be 

evaluated and awarded points as 

follows: 

(1) Demonstrated Need: (30 Points) 

Study sponsors may demonstrate 

need for these funds by demonstrating 

a substantial transportation problem in 

the study corridor and the presence of 

one or more of the following conditions: 

(a) The lack a recent survey of transit 

riders; 

(b) The lack of useful information on 

bus travel times and schedule reliability 

in the presence of substantial traffic 

congestion that affects the travel speeds 

and schedule reliability of buses 

operating in mixed traffic; 

(c) A study that contains Small Starts 

alternatives for which the existing 

regional travel forecasting models are 

deemed inappropriate; 

(d) The degree to which technical 

work will develop information on the 

full range of costs and benefits of 

projects seeking New or Small starts 

funding. 

In addition, FTA will give additional 

consideration to studies in metropolitan 

areas that are part of the Department’s 

Congestion Initiative. 


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Federal Register / Vol. 72, No. 56 / Friday, March 23, 2007 / Notices 13981 

(2) Potential Impact on Decision-Making 

(40 Points) 

Study sponsors must demonstrate the 

potential impact of the proposed tasks 

on decision-making. For example, for a 

task to collect and analyze bus travel 

times, this could be accomplished by 

considering alternatives that would 

improve transit speeds and schedule 

reliability, having access to 

electronically archived data from an 

Automated Vehicle Locator system, and 

anticipating the analysis of information 

on a variety of transit operating regimes. 

The operating regimes include local 

buses, limited-stop buses, bus rapid 

transit, and other services. 

(3) Capacity of the Applicant To Carry 

Out the Proposed Work Successfully (30 

Points) 

Study sponsors will demonstrate 

capacity to successfully undertake the 

proposed tasks by the quality of the 

local procedures for predicting the 

system performance, multimodal 

impacts, and ridership response of new 

transit investments, and the track 

record, if any, of the applicant in the 

prediction of ridership for previous New 

Starts projects. 

Outstanding proposals in study areas 

with substantial transportation 

problems could receive up to $2 million 

in 5339 funding. 

II. Proposal Development, Review, 

Selection and Notification 

FTA staff is available to discuss and 

clarify our expectations regarding these 

efforts before study sponsors submit 

applications. After receiving funding 

proposals, FTA regional offices will 

conduct an eligibility review with 

headquarters performing evaluations of 

the surviving proposals. FTA will 

announce successful applicants/projects 

in a subsequent Federal Register notice. 

The criteria and application procedures 

may be reassessed for subsequent years. 

III. Additional Program Information 

A. Funds Administration 

Once FTA has reviewed the proposals 

and selected the winners, FTA will 

award funds to the project sponsor to 

support the agreed upon tasks. These 

funds will be administered according to 

federal requirements as well as the 

appropriate policies, guidelines and 

rules of the pertinent agencies. 

The Government’s share of the cost of 

an activity funded using amounts made 

available under this section may not 

exceed 80 percent of the cost of the 

activity. 

An amount made available or 

appropriated for this section remains 

available for 3 fiscal years, including the 

fiscal year in which the amount is made 

available or appropriated. The Secretary 

may use any amount that is unobligated 

at the end of the 3-fiscal-year period for 

any purpose under Section 5339. FTA 

will not approve deferred local share. 

B. Application Methods 

(1) State and local agencies may apply 

by e-mail to 

5339GrantApplication@dot.gov, or 

(2) Apply electronically through the 

Grants.Gov portal, or 

(3) Agencies may apply via paper 

application to Steve Lewis-Workman, 

Federal Transit Administration, TPE– 

21, 400 Seventh Street, SW., 

Washington, DC 20590. 

C. Performance Measures 

Participants may be asked to compile 

data for use in measuring program 

performance. 

Issued in Washington, DC, this 12th day of 

March 2007. 

James S. Simpson, 

Administrator. 

[FR Doc. E7–4830 Filed 3–22–07; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4910–57–P 


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