Source: http://www.fta.dot.gov/printer_friendly/12304_2770.html
Timestamp: 2015-08-30 19:58:40
Document Index: 385065983

Matched Legal Cases: ['§5309', '§5309', '§5327', '§5309', '§5309', 'art 450', 'art 771']

This report provides the U.S. Department of Transportation's recommendations to Congress for allocation of funds to be made available under 49 U.S.C. §5309 for construction of new fixed guideway systems and extensions (major capital investments or "new starts") for Fiscal Year 2000. Section 5309(o)(1) requires an annual report to Congress "that includes a proposal on the allocation of amounts to be made available to finance grants and loans for capital projects for new fixed guideway systems and extensions to existing fixed guideway systems among applicants for those amounts."
The President's budget for FY 2000 proposes that $980.40 million be made available for the §5309 major capital investment program. After setting aside a percentage of these funds for oversight activities as specified in §5327, and for ferry capital projects in Alaska or Hawaii as required by §5309(m)(5)(A), $962.725 million is available for project grants. This report recommends funding for 25 projects in FY 2000; of these, 14 have existing Federal funding commitments in the form of Full Funding Grant Agreements (FFGA), seven are expected to be ready to negotiate FFGAs by the end of FY 2000, and four are nearing the final stages of preliminary engineering.
Projects are to be funded using Full Funding Grant Agreements (FFGAs), which specify the project to be constructed and the maximum amount of Federal funds which will be made available for the project.
The criteria do not apply to projects which require less than $25 million in §5309 funds, or which are completely funded with flexible Title 23 (highway program) funds.
In addition to these, however, TEA-21 introduced a number of important changes to the way FTA manages and implements the new starts program. Among the most significant changes are the following: Integration of the Major Investment Study (MIS) concepts into the joint planning and environmental regulations issued by FTA and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) (23 CFR Part 450 and 23 CFR Part 771), elimination of the MIS as a separate requirement, and streamlining of the environmental process.
A requirement for FTA approval before a project can advance from preliminary engineering to final design (in addition to the existing requirement for approval to initiate preliminary engineering).
A requirement for FTA to publish regulations on the manner in which proposed projects will be evaluated and rated.
The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) is expected to be issued in early 1999. Following publication in the Federal Register, the NPRM will be open to public comment for a period of 60 days. Public comments will be reviewed and incorporated as appropriate into the Final Rule, which should be published in early Spring.
Due to the fact that the Final Rule has not been published, the project evaluations and funding recommendations for FY 2000 are based on FTA�s existing process, as published in the Federal Register on December 19, 1996 and amended on November 12, 1997 (61 FR 67093-106 & 62 FR 60756-58), modified slightly to account for the increased emphasis on land use by TEA-21 and the prohibition against placing a dollar value on mobility improvements.