Performance Based FederalAid Programs

1
Performance Based Federal-Aid Programs

• Pete Rahn, Chair, AASHTO Standing Committee on
  Performance Management
• Director, Missouri DOT
• February 23,2009 AASHTO Legislative Briefing

2
Overview Recommendations

• We believe major reform is needed in order to be
  successful in securing increased federal funds
• There needs to be a continued strong federal
  role, restoring historic federal share of 45 of
  highway and transit capital funding, apportioning
  90 of the overall highway program to states, and
  limiting earmarks to no more than 5 of the
  program

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Establish National Transportation Performance
Goals through which National Objectives Can be
Achieved

• National goals should be established in six areas
  including safety, preservation, congestion,
  system operations, freight and environment. For
  safety, the congress should enact the national
  goal of halving fatalities in two decades.
• Authorization legislation should direct AASHTO
  in consultation with APTA , the MPOs, and the
  U.S. DOT to establish national performance goals
  for each of the other five areas by two years
  after enactment .
• No rulemaking process would be required or
  desired, with the exception of a conforming
  rulemaking to accommodate the changes in statute.

4
Develop a State Driven Performance Management
Approach

• Each state will adopt state developed performance
  targets for each of the six key national goals
  once they are established . These will be
  coordinated with their MPOs and transit
  properties
• Changes to the eight planning factors to be goal
  oriented objectives are recommended.

5
State Measurements and Reports

• Each state will be called on to develop a process
  to track and report on performance results in
  each of the six key national goal areas of
  safety, preservation, congestion, system
  operations, freight/economic development, and
  environment.
• AASHTO must recommend a process by which states
  self-define targets that would work in their
  unique context rather than have measures and
  targets imposed through some other process
  including federal statute, regulation or funding
  distribution.

6
State Measurements and Reports (Continued)

• Establish a Performance-Oriented Pilot Program,
  similar to what USDOT has recently proposed for
  those states and metropolitan areas that have
  established and met performance measures and
  targets in the six national goal areas that are
  acceptable to the USDOT.
• Regulatory relief and funding flexibility would
  be provided in terms of planning requirements,
  conformity requirements, 4(f) requirements, and
  engineering oversight.
• All states are eligible

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Candidate Performance Measures

• SAFETY fatalities and serious injuries-numbers
  and rates
• PRESERVATION pavement roughness, bridge
  condition and age of transit fleet
• CONGESTION hours of delay, travel time and
  transit load factors
• SYSTEM OPERATION travel time index, incident
  clearance time, and lane closures
• FREIGHT/ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT average Interstate
  and NHS speed, border crossing time, bridge
  clearance for containers, TEU throughput at ports
• ENVIRONMENT green house gas emissions, agency
  use of energy recycled products and carbon
  footprint

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Draft Candidate National Goals for Discussion

• Safety Reduce the number of highway fatalities
  by 50 over 20 years
• Preservation
• Pavement goal Reduce the percent of pavement in
  poor condition on the Interstate by X percent in
  ten years and reduce the percent of poor pavement
  on the NHS by Y percent in ten years
• Bridge goal Reduce the number of structurally
  deficient bridges on the interstate by X percent
  in ten years and reduce the number of
  structurally deficient bridges on the NHS by Y
  percent in ten years
• Transit goal Keep the transit fleet in a state
  of good repair by maintaining average age of bus
  fleet at X years and average age of rail fleet at
  Y years.

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Draft Candidate National Goals for Discussion

• Congestion Immediate goals would be establishing
  a consistent method for measuring and tracking
  congestion levels (total delay) for all urban
  areas above X population. Once in place a
  national goal to reduce total delay by X percent
  over ten years could be established.
• System Operation Initial goal would need to be
  focused on establishing a consistent approach to
  measuring incident clearance times on Interstate
  (and potentially other systems) a national goal
  to reduce incident clearance time by X or Y
  percent within ten years
• Freight /Economic Development Increase the
  average speed on freight significant Interstate
  and NHS corridors by X percent
• Environment Reduce the growth in greenhouse gas
  emissions from transport by X percent by year Y.

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Challenges in the Concept

• Agreement in principle among all the
  owners/operators .
• National goalswhat are they?
• Measuresfor translating national goals thru
  measures and targets at the state and metro area
  levels
• Target setting -----State driven a must!
• Federal vs. State vs. Metro roles and expectations