Performance Based Federal-Aid 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

3. 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 MPO’s 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

7. Candidate Performance Measures • SAFETY: fatalities and serious injuries-numbers and rates • PRESERVATION: pavement roughness, bridge condition andage 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

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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