AASHTO Journal, 25 October 2013
The AASHTO Board of Directors approved several resolutions regarding surface transportation bill MAP-21 reauthorization policy on Monday, the final day of the 2014 AASHTO Annual Meeting in Denver. The policy resolutions provide a map for the coming year, as MAP-21 expires at the end of September 2014.
The MAP-21 reauthorization policy resolutions are as follows:
Resolution Expressing Support for MAP-21 Reauthorization Core Principles
AASHTO supports the following MAP-21 reauthorization core principles:
- Continue a vibrant and stable funding role in investing in, maintaining, and operating an integrated and multimodal national surface transportation system.
- Support the roles and responsibilities of states, transit agencies, and local governments—the owners, managers, and operators of the nation’s highway and transit systems.
- Maintain the core principle of a federally assisted, state administered highway program and extend this principle to the transit program and its owners and operators.
- Maintain at least the current share of total highway program funding in MAP-21 provided to states via apportioned core programs by continuing the current prohibition on earmarks.
- Preserve the fundamental program and policy reforms in MAP-21 and support additional opportunities to streamline and simplify the federal surface transportation programs.
- Coalesce around practical funding options, including any user-fee based revenue options, to sustain federal highway, highway safety, and transit program funding and to supplement revenues from existing sources.
- Protect and further expand policies that support flexible use of conventional and innovative funding and financing tools.
- Provide dedicated funding, funding guarantees, and budgetary firewalls for all modes.
Resolution on Funding and Financing
This resolution states that the federal government must continue to play a vibrant and stable funding role in investing in, maintaining, and operating a surface transportation system that meets the needs of its customers. Congress must at least maintain the existing MAP-21 highway and transit program investment level in real terms and also consider an investment level that meets the needs identified by U.S. Department of Transportation’s projections that $63.1 billion per year between 2015 and 2020 is needed to address the nation’s surface transportation conditions. Congress must also consider an investment level that would equal or maintain revenue levels achieved in 1993, the last time the federal gas tax was raised, coming from a variety of existing and new funding mechanisms (though none identified in particular in preference to others). The resolution calls for “ample time” to implement MAP-21, with authorization lasting for a duration of six years.
Resolution on Performance Management
AASHTO supports the use of performance management to improve the surface transportation network, but still opposes these measures for apportioning or allocating funding. AASHTO also recommends no additional measures be established until multiple state reporting cycles have occurred. USDOT, according to this resolution, should work with state DOTs to create more consistent methodology for collected data related to MAP-21 performance management requirements without undue burdens on states.
Resolution on Project Delivery
This resolution calls for some changes to 23 USC 327 to accelerate project delivery, and that new reauthorization legislation should require USDOT, at a sponsor’s request, to initiate a NEPA review for a project planned to be funded with a non-traditional funding source (such as state and local financing). The resolution also calls for dollar threshold amounts for MAP-21 categorical exclusions to be adjusted for inflation.
Among the points in this resolution, AASHTO expresses support for the planning policy reforms in MAP-21 and opposes any major changes to them until the current reforms have been implemented and evaluated. The resolution says reauthorization of MAP-21 should avoid any “unnecessary administrative burdens or unnecessary restrictions on state flexibility” and that any new legislation should maintain the current balance of authority and responsibility among state DOTs, metropolitan planning organizations, and rural planning organizations.
AASHTO resolves that flexibility is of the utmost importance for MAP-21 reauthorization as it pertains to highways, and that it is vital in determining the appropriate use of protection in work zones to ensure safety for all. Flexibility is also needed in requirements regarding value engineering analyses to ensure that newer and better approaches are not discouraged, and flexibility should be given to states to fund any non-NHS bridge on the federal-aid highway system under the National Highway Performance Program, among other points.
This resolution says that freight policy must address the importance of the ability to move goods long distances across rural areas between populations centers and vice versa, referencing the multi-modal and intermodal nature of freight. The resolution also urges for greater flexibility in designating additional segments beyond the National Freight Networks’ mileage cap of 30,000 plus all other Interstates. AASHTO calls for more funding for surface transportation, as well as enhanced eligibility and flexibility for states to support multi-state corridor planning. Also, the resolution asks for Congress to reestablish the Office of Multimodal Freight Transportation in USDOT (properly funded and staffed) and also find funding to reestablish the National Cooperative Freight Research Program.
Resolution on Public Transportation
The public transportation resolution calls for the development of a pilot program to allow some pre-approved eligible projects to be processed immediately upon appropriation of funds. AASHTO asks that Section 5310 program funds be administered by the state on behalf of the Federal Transit Administration and not sub-allocated to urbanized areas, to best address where statewide need exists. The resolution also calls for increased flexibility and project eligibility of the Intercity Bus program, and that CMAQ project eligibility be expanded to amend the definition of capital to include other specific terms, among other points.
This resolution includes multiple points on safety grant program qualifications, as well as a call for flexibility to allow states to create a range of acceptable values for safety performance targets, rather than a distinct value. AASHTO calls for at least three years of safety data to see whether a target or special rule provisions are met. The resolution calls for no new added complexity or performance measures until current ones are evaluated.
AASHTO here calls for sufficient funding for the Federal Highway Administration to carry out research, technology, and implementation activities in transportation, such as SHRP2. The resolution calls for maintaining the State Planning and Research program, with a certain allotment for research and technology activities. The Transit Cooperative Research Program should be funded at a level of $10 million per year, while the University Transportation Center should be maintained at MAP-21 levels and flexibility should be increased. The National Cooperative Freight Research Program should be reestablished at a level of $5 million per year, to be administered through the National Academy of Sciences.