Audit Finds U.S. DOT Transit Record-Keeping “Unreliable,” “Inaccurate”

The disjointed state of "New Starts," the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) program to fund new rail and bus lines, is well-known on Capitol Hill — in fact, House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) recently quipped that it ought to be renamed "small starts, low starts, and no starts."

charlotterail.jpgThousands gathered to board the new light rail line in Charlotte, NC in 2007. Photo via Light Rail Now

With Oberstar’s six-year transportation re-write bill in limbo for the moment, however, there appears to be scant political urgency to fix the program. But a report released today by the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) could help change that picture.

It can take as long as 14 years for transit planners to secure a full-funding New Starts grant agreement (FFGA), the final stage required before starting construction. Yet when GAO auditors set out to break the process down by its stages (which are depicted in a comically complex chart after the jump) they found the FTA could only provide complete information for nine out of 40 New Starts projects approved since 1997.

"We were unable to obtain complete and reliable project milestone data from FTA," GAO auditors wrote. An attempt to confirm records for a random sample of 10 New Starts projects found the information to be "unreliable and, in some cases, inaccurate."

The GAO report then outlined the FTA’s explanation for its inconsistent data:

First, FTA told us that it does not have records on when a project begins alternatives analysis because this phase is conducted at the local level, generally without FTA involvement. Second, FTA told us that it does not record when a project sponsor submits an application for preliminary engineering, final design, and FFGA because project sponsors almost never submit complete applications.

The bureaucratic hurdles that transit planners must clear to win federal aid stand in stark contrast to road projects’ usually unobstructed path to approval. But without solid data to make the case for fixing New Starts, transit advocates’ already arduous political fight for fairer treatment is likely to get even harder.

The GAO report can be downloaded in full here.

d09784_0009.jpgSource: GAO

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

Transit Planners to Congress: Please Figure Out How to Fund Us

By Elana Schor |
To all but the most ardent transit wonks, the phrase "New Starts" sounds like a motivational tape sold on late-night TV. But those two words actually represent Washington’s predominant mechanism to pay for major transit expansions — everything from expanding an existing rail station to building a new bus line. Minnesota’s Hiawatha rail line is […]

U.S. DOT Previews How New Transit Rules Could Define ‘Livability’

By Elana Schor |
When the Obama administration announced an ambitious revamp of transit funding rules to, as the Transportation Secretary put it, "take livability into account," urban planners and transit advocates alike were pleased — but also uncertain. Baltimore’s rail network, with the proposed new Red Line — which could get a boost from the U.S. DOT’s livability […]