Transportation Infrastructure

Urban Transportation Planning Can Better Address Modal Trade-offs Gao ID: RCED-92-112 April 2, 1992

Almost 70 percent of peak-hour interstate travel was congested in 1990, and 6 out of 10 people lived in areas that failed to meet national air quality standards. Recent legislation provides $155 billion in federal assistance for highway and mass transit programs over a 6-year period ending in fiscal year 1997. States and localities will have unprecedented flexibility in addressing congestion and air quality problems, a critical issue in meeting the requirements of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. For some areas, this means building high-occupancy vehicle lanes and improving mass transit instead of widening lanes for single-occupant cars. This report examines funding flexibility between the highway and mass transit programs. GAO looks at (1) the extent to which highways and mass transit program funds have been used across modal lines and (2) the highway and mass transit planning processes to determine if improvements are needed to make more effective choices in addressing congestion and clean air problems.

GAO found that: (1) only about 4 percent of the $174 billion of federal-aid highway funds obligated by states and localities since fiscal year (FY) 1976 have been invested in traditional mass transit projects; and (2) only about 1 percent of the $40 billion in mass transit capital assistance financed high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, busways, and other nontraditional transportation projects. GAO also found that the use of highway and mass transit funds across modal lines has been limited because: (1) the federal matching share for mass transit capital assistance projects has been more favorable for states and localities than the matching share for federal and urban projects; and (2) states and localities are reluctant to use highway and mass transit funds across modal lines because highway and mass transit needs exceed available program funds. In addition, GAO found that: (1) Department of Transportation (DOT) regulations do not include criteria for making modal trade-offs between highways and mass transit within a specific transportation corridor, and few state and local organizations have developed such criteria; and (2) criteria that states and localities use to evaluate major capital projects within each mode generally do not facilitate comparisons.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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