BACKGROUND
The New Starts Program is the federal government's primary discretionary financial resource for major transit investments. Under this program, the federal government provides funding for new fixed-guideway transit projects, including heavy rail, light rail, commuter rail, streetcars, ferries, and corridor-based bus projects. As conceived by the underlying legislations, the New Starts Program only funds meritorious transit investments. Selecting these projects requires that FTA and project sponsors apply objective criteria to evaluate projects for what has become a highly competitive program.
Existing Legal Framework
Title 49, United States Code, Chapter 53 (Federal Transit Law) directs FTA to evaluate and rate transit projects for federal funding based on the New Starts project justification criteria and an assessment of the sponsor's financial plans and local financial commitment. FTA New Starts project justification criteria currently include (1) mobility improvements, (2) operating efficiencies, (3) cost-effectiveness, (4) environmental benefits, (5) economic development, and (6) transit-supportive land use policies and future patterns.
FTA generally assigns a weight of 50 percent each to cost-effectiveness and land use when calculating a project justification rating. In the SAFETEA-LU Technical Corrections Act of 2008, however, Congress directed that “comparable, but not necessarily equal, numerical weight [be given] to each project justification criteria in calculating the overall project rating.”
Although FTA currently considers information on environmental benefits, mobility improvements, operating efficiencies, and economic development, the methodologies for these criteria have not been sufficiently developed to provide meaningful distinctions among projects. For example, although in the past FTA required project sponsors to quantify reductions in air quality emissions based on regional changes in vehicle miles traveled resulting from the proposed transit project, the scale of the effect was often too small to allow differentiation among projects. More importantly, applying that measure did not reflect benefits that transit projects typically bring to the environment--benefits that federal transit law requires FTA to consider in its project evaluation. Such benefits can include reductions in local infrastructure costs achieved through compact land use development (i.e., the cost of suburban sprawl) as well as reductions in energy consumption, noise pollution, air pollution, and greenhouse gases.
Research is needed to develop useful criteria, metrics, and methods to evaluate and compare environmental performance of transit projects.
Considerations for Developing Criteria, Metrics, and Methods of Environmental Performance
Building on a recent colloquium, “Comparing the Environmental Benefits of Transit Projects,” conducted by the Volpe Center (October 2008), the following considerations are important to developing criteria, metrics, and methods for assessing and comparing environmental performance of transit projects:
- Public and political understanding and acceptance of environmental performance criteria will be greater if such criteria are intuitively correct and transparent.
- As much as possible, the criteria for assessing and comparing environmental performance should be based on data and methods readily available, easily attainable, and generally accepted by project sponsors. Where new data and methods are needed, the contractor for this research should remain mindful of financial and staffing requirements of project sponsors. The environmental performance of a proposed transit project may be computed many times during project development. Computing highly complex measures of environmental performance can be relatively expensive.
- The criteria and methods should be generally applicable to all types of regions, ranging from densely developed areas with extensive transit networks to low-density environments with limited transit infrastructure. This approach recognizes differences in changes in environmental performance that may result from transit investments.
- The criteria must be applicable to various transit technologies (e.g., heavy rail, light rail, commuter rail, ferry, streetcar, and bus rapid transit) and various project lengths, in various locations and metropolitan areas. The criteria must account for the size of the investment (i.e., performance may be different for a $300-million project than for a $5-billion project).
- The criteria should clearly distinguish transit projects that are more environmentally beneficial from those less beneficial, while recognizing that a project can be environmentally beneficial without demonstrating a change in environmental performance because it supports existing sustainable development.
- Although quantitative methods and metrics are preferable, qualitative criteria of evaluating environmental performance may, in some instances, be more appropriate.
- The criteria, metrics, and methods for assessing and comparing environmental performance should, where possible, be able to be compared against a baseline alternative, including the New Starts Baseline alternative and the No-Build alternative. Some criteria, metrics, and methods may best be applied using one of the baselines noted above or another baseline identified by the researcher. Substantial differences among the baselines (e.g., data availability) should be noted.
- Although many factors may be considered, some practitioners have indicated a preference for a process that develops a single rating for environmental performance.
- The research should address the ramifications of potential overlap and double-counting of the environmental performance and other New Starts criteria.
- Despite the fact that federal transit law refers to “environmental benefits,” a transit project’s environmental disbenefits should also be taken into account. Disbenefits may encompass externalities or social costs to the environment. For example, a transit project that requires numerous, large park-and-ride lots for access by private automobile may or may not be beneficial to the environment.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this research is to present, evaluate, and demonstrate criteria, metrics, and methods (see Special Note A) for assessing and comparing the environmental performance of major transit investments (e.g., projects defined by FTA 5309 New Starts and Small Starts projects). The research results should offer a basis for assessing and comparing these transit projects and should offer project sponsors optional criteria, metrics, and methods for assessing transit projects with regard to environmental performance. Although the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process may be a source of information for the environmental criteria, this research should focus on environmental performance assessment and comparison, not environmental impact analysis.
TASKS
(1). Establish a series of key environmental performance categories and sub-categories that are now, or may soon be, applicable to the environmental performance of major transit investments. (2). Prepare a synopsis of existing and emerging practices used to measure/estimate, assess, and compare the environmental performance within each category and sub-category identified in Task 1. The synopsis should include a short narrative summarizing the scope and extent of the practices and a summary matrix highlighting which environmental performance categories and sub-categories are addressed by each practice. (3). To supplement Task 2, interview representatives of (1) public transit systems varying in size, geography, and urban setting and (2) stakeholders from industries with similar environmental performance concerns to gather information on challenges currently faced when (a) trying to estimate/measure, assess, and compare the environmental performance of major projects and (b) identifying improved strategies for measuring and describing environmental performance. (4). Based on the information compiled in Tasks 1 through 3, assemble and define the criteria, metrics, and methods that could be used to measure or describe the environmental performance of major projects within each category and sub-category. Identify where performance metrics applicable to major transit projects are lacking and propose proxies or new metrics for consideration. (5). Conduct a preliminary screening to narrow the universe of criteria, metrics, and methods to be evaluated in Task 8. The screening approach should be quick and easy to apply and to understand. Example screening questions may include, but need not be limited to, the following:
- Is the criterion, metric, or method likely to be applicable to transit projects?
- Is there a reasonable chance that data or projections are available or can be generated?
- Is there a reasonable chance that the results could distinguish among the environmental performance of major transit investments?
(6). Propose a more detailed screening approach to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of the criteria, metrics, and methods for assessing and comparing the environmental performance of major transit investments resulting from Task 5. The screening approach should focus on the Considerations for Developing Criteria, Metrics, and Methods of Environmental Performance presented in the Background to this Project Statement. In addition, the following questions should be considered in developing the screening approach:
- Do the criteria, metrics, and methods provide a useful, relevant, and/or comprehensive assessment of the transit project’s environmental performance?
- Does the assessment provide environmental performance criteria and metrics not previously available? Or, does the assessment provide more clarity to environmental performance?
- Do the metrics and methods contain a relatively high level of certainty or uncertainty?
- How sensitive are the metrics to project time horizon or discount factor? How does the approach aggregate current and future environmental consequences in a consistent way?
- How sensitive are the metrics to uncertainties of ridership and land use projections? How does the approach deal with uncertainties of the social values of various environmental consequences?
To demonstrate its usefulness, apply the proposed screening approach to several criteria, metrics, and methods. (7). Submit an interim report that presents the results of Tasks 1 through 6 and propose needed revisions, if any, to the work plan for the remaining tasks. (8). Based on input from the TCRP panel, modify the screening approach and document changes to the work plan, as necessary. Use the improved screening approach to evaluate the full list of metrics resulting from Task 6. Present and discuss the results of the screening to determine the suggested metrics for assessing and comparing the environmental performance of major transit projects. (9). Using combinations of metrics from Task 8, propose a hierarchy of criteria, metrics, and methods, from simple to complex, which could be used to evaluate the environmental performance of major transit investments. Identify the merits and limitations of each. (10). Develop a presentation with supplementary handouts, as necessary, of the findings of Tasks 8 and 9, and prepare an outline of the final report. (11). Prepare a final report with an executive summary. While the report should be thorough, it should also be concise. Detailed documentation of research results should be presented in appendices.
STATUS: Proposals have been received in response to the RFP. The panel will meet in September to select a contractor.
