Federal Transit Administration November 2007 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and Utah Transit Authority (UTA) intend to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to evaluate proposed public transportation improvements to extend fixed guideway transit service through the cities of Sandy and Draper to the southernmost part of Salt Lake County, Utah. The Wasatch Front Regional Council (WFRC) has adopted a long-range transportation plan, which is a comprehensive system plan and includes the full build-out of public transportation improvements in several corridors. The general alignments of the corridors have been identified in the approved plan. The Draper Transit Corridor has been identified in the plan as a two- track extension of the existing North-South Light Rail Transit (LRT) line from its current terminus at 10000 South in Sandy to about 14600 South in Draper along the UTA owned right-of-way. The Draper Transit Corridor Project, as defined in the WFRC long-range plan, was identified as the preferred alternative at the conclusion of a locally prepared alternatives analysis. The EIS will build on the results of the local alternatives analysis and evaluate other reasonable alternatives in accordance with appropriate statutes and regulations. The EIS will be prepared in accordance with section 102(2)c of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) and pursuant to the Council on the Environmental Quality's regulations (40 CFR parts 1500- 1508), FTA/FHWA joint regulations (23 CFR 771) as well as provisions of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU). The purpose of this notice is to alert interested parties regarding the intent to prepare the EIS, to provide information on the nature of the proposed project and possible alternatives, to invite public participation in the NEPA process (including providing comments on the scope of the DEIS), and to announce that a public scoping meeting will be conducted. The EIS will examine and evaluate a number of transit alternatives in the corridor including a Transportation Systems Management (TSM) Alternative. Any additional alternatives generated by the scoping process as well as the proposed station locations for the Build alternatives will also be considered. The alternatives will be compared to a No-Action Alternative for evaluation purposes. Scoping of the EIS will be accomplished through a public meeting, correspondence with interested persons, organizations and Federal, State and local agencies, and through a meeting with cooperating and participating public agencies. A scoping information packet will be posted on the UTA Web site at https://www.rideuta.com and hard copies of the packet will be distributed on request.

This notice provides interested parties with the opportunity to comment on changes to the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) National Transit Database (NTD) policy on strike adjustments. On March 12, 2007, FTA provided notice to NTD reporters that it was changing its policy on strikes, to permit transit agencies to request an adjustment to their NTD data that are used in the apportionment of Urbanized Area Formula Grants to offset the effect of strikes, retroactive to the 2005 Report Year. FTA invites the public to comment on this policy change.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.), this notice announces that the Information Collection Request (ICR) abstracted below has been forwarded to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for approval. The Federal Register Notice with a 60-day comment period soliciting comments was published on August 24, 2007. No comments were received in response to that notice.