Federal Highway Administration January 5, 2015 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

Section 1203 of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) declared that performance management will transform the Federal-aid highway program and refocus it on national transportation goals, increase accountability and transparency of the Federal-aid highway program and improve project decisionmaking through performance-based planning and programming. Section 1203 of MAP-21 identifies the national transportation goals and requires the Secretary to promulgate a rule to establish performance measures in specified Federal-aid highway program areas. The FHWA is issuing three separate NPRMs to meet this requirement, and this is the second NPRM. This NPRM proposes to establish measures for State Departments of Transportation (State DOTs) to use to carry out the National Highway Performance Program (NHPP) and to assess the condition of the following: pavements on the National Highway System (NHS) (excluding the Interstate System), bridges on the NHS, and pavements on the Interstate System. The NHPP is a core Federal-aid highway program that provides support for the condition and performance of the NHS and the construction of new facilities on the NHS, and ensures that investments of Federal-aid funds in highway construction are directed to support progress toward the achievement of performance targets established in a State's asset management plan for the NHS. This NPRM proposes regulations for the new performance aspects of the NHPP, which address: measures, targets, and reporting. The FHWA intends to make these performance aspects of the NHPP available to the public in a format that is easily understandable and accessible for download. This second NPRM also includes a discussion of the collective rulemaking actions FHWA has or intends to take to implement MAP-21 performance-related provisions.