Transcript Slide 1
Performance Based Federal-Aid
Programs
Pete Rahn, Chair, AASHTO Standing Committee on
Performance Management
Director, Missouri DOT
February 23,2009 AASHTO Legislative Briefing
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
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.
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 MPO’s and transit
properties
• Changes to the eight planning factors to be goal
oriented objectives are recommended.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
Challenges in the Concept
• Agreement in principle among all the
owners/operators .
• National goals—what are they?
• Measures—for 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