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 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. 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. 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. First, FTA evaluates and rates projects on each new starts criterion. Appendix I summarizes the measures that FTA uses in applying the criteria to develop these ratings. 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 issued a notice of proposed rulemaking on April 7, 1999. Comments on the proposed rule are due on July 6, 1999. FTA plans to issue the final regulations in the summer of 1999.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) efforts to develop and implement evaluation and rating processes and procedures for evaluating new start transit projects for federal funding, focusing on: (1) the status of FTA's efforts; (2) how FTA implemented the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) requirements for evaluating, rating, and recommending projects; and (3) open issues that FTA needs to resolve to fully satisfy TEA-21 requirements.

What GAO Found

GAO noted that: (1) FTA has made substantial progress in developing and implementing a new starts evaluation and rating process, as required by TEA-21; (2) 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; (3) in 1997, FTA first applied these criteria for its fiscal year (FY) 1999 project evaluations; (4) 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; (5) the evaluation process FTA followed to prepare its FY 2000 new starts report uses ratings based on specific financial and project justification criteria to build toward an overall project rating; (6) 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; (7) while FTA has implemented a new starts evaluation and rating process for FY 2000 that addressed TEA-21 requirements, it has not issued final regulations on the evaluation and rating process, as required by the legislation; and (8) FTA issued a proposed rule on April 7, 1999, and plans to issue final regulations in summer 1999.