FTA New Starts Report for 2018

The Federal Transit Administration released is annual recommendations for 2018 federal capital grants to local transit projects, a.k.a. New Starts report. Usually, the report went through all sorts of gyrations rating each projects by various criteria.

This year, the criteria, or rather criterion, was simple. Had the FTA already agreed to fund the project with what is known as a full-funding grant agreement, or FFGA? If yes, then the project would be funded. If no, it would not be funded.

Yet a footnote indicated two exceptions: “The FFGA for the Caltrain Peninsula Corridor Electrification Project is planned to be signed shortly and the Maryland National Capital Purple Line FFGA remains under review due to pending litigation.” Yet neither of these exceptions should be made.

As the Antiplanner noted yesterday, the Caltrain project already had a signed agreement, but it was signed by an acting administrator just two days before Obama left office, and that administrator then took a job with a Caltrain contractor. Considering that almost every Republican and many Democrats in California opposed the Caltrain project, which is really just a subsidy to high-speed rail, Secretary Chao had every reason to overturn that decision.
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The Obama administration might have signed the Purple Line FFGA as well were it not for a pesky lawsuit in which the judge said that building more rail transit didn’t make sense when the region couldn’t afford to maintain the rail system it had. The judge didn’t comment on the fact that the traffic analysis for the project predicted that it would significantly increase congestion in a region that is already one of the most congested in America.

Unlike the Caltrain project, the Purple Line has the support of some prominent Republicans, notably Maryland Governor Hogan. Hogan won the governorship by campaigning against the Purple Line but then changed his mind after he took office. Supposedly, the Purple Line will stimulate economic development, but the truth is that Montgomery County has locked up so much land in agricultural reserves that housing prices are sky high and developers are happy to build high-density housing–but the county won’t give them permission to build higher-density projects until the Purple Line is approved.

Plenty of cities are in line for funds for rail projects that don’t have FFGAs: Phoenix, Tempe, San Bernardino, San Rafael, Santa Ana. Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Minneapolis, Durham, Seattle, and Tacoma. Local opposition to many of these projects is nowhere near as strong as it was to the Caltrain project, so the Trump administration may have to fight Congress over whether to fund these projects.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

2 Responses to FTA New Starts Report for 2018

  1. prk166 says:

    I’m trying to wrap my little brain around this stuff. Project that have entered into Engineering __do not__ have an FFGA, correct?

    https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/docs/funding/grant-programs/capital-investments/60771/fy18-annual-report_0.pdf

    New Starts Projects Entered into Engineering
    ? CA Santa Ana, Garden Grove Streetcar
    ? MN Minneapolis, METRO Blue Line Extension
    ? MN Minneapolis, Southwest LRT
    Core Capacity Projects Entered into Engineering
    ? CA San Carlos, Caltrain Peninsula Corridor Electrification Project

  2. prk166 says:

    Mr. O’Toole, I have not found the legislation confirming this but it sounds like the special session that Minnesota just had passed a new budget bill that is waiting for Governor Fruitcake.. I mean, Dayton to sign. It has been said to still include, among other things, a provision to disallow any MN state general funds to be used toward the operating costs for the proposed Metro Transit Southwest Light Rail line.

    This proposal has been around for awhile and surviving. Any normal gov would recognize that after a special session, the budget is fair enough. Dayton is loopy enough to veto it over who knows what. So it”s hard to say if this will become legislation in the end.

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