Federal Transit Administration November 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This notice announces final environmental actions taken by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) for projects in the following locations: City of Aurora and Arapahoe County, CO; Chicago, IL; Birmingham, AL; Sacramento, CA; New York, NY; and King County, WA. The purpose of this notice is to announce publicly the environmental decisions by FTA on the subject projects and to activate the limitation on any claims that may challenge these final environmental actions.

The Federal Transit Administration invites public comment about our intention to request the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to extend the approval of the following information collection: 49 U.S.C. Section 5330Rail Fixed Guideway Systems, State Safety Oversight. The information collected is used to monitor the safety of the rail transit agencies. The Federal Register notice with a 60-day comment period soliciting comments was published on August 29, 2011 (Citation 76 FR 53713). No comments were received from that notice.

The Federal Transit Administration invites public comment about our intention to request the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) approval to renew the following information collection: 49 U.S.C. Section 5320Paul S. Sarbanes Transit in Parks Program. The information collected is to monitor projects and satisfy Congressional requests. The Federal Register notice with a 60-day comment period soliciting comments was published on August 29, 2011 (Citation 76 FR 53714). No comments were received from that notice.

The U.S. Department of Transportation's (DOT) Federal Transit Administration (FTA) announces the selection of projects funded under two discretionary programs: Bus and Bus Facilities and Alternatives Analysis, in support of DOT's Livability Initiative, which was announced in the Discretionary Livability Funding Opportunity notice of funding availability on June 27, 2011. The Bus Livability program makes funds available to public transit providers to finance capital projects to replace, rehabilitate, and purchase buses and related equipment and to construct bus-related facilities, including programs of bus and bus- related projects for assistance to subrecipients that are public agencies, private companies engaged in public transportation, or private non-profit organizations. The Alternatives Analysis program makes funds available to States, authorities of States, metropolitan planning organizations, and local governmental authorities to develop alternatives analyses. The Alternatives Analysis Program assists potential sponsors of major transit capital investments (``New Starts'' and ``Small Starts'' projects) in the evaluation of all reasonable modal and multimodal alternatives and general alignment options to address transportation needs in a defined travel corridor. Through these funding awards, FTA will support a limited number of alternatives analyses, or technical work conducted as part of proposed or on-going alternatives analyses, that seek to advance major transit investments that foster the six livability principles of the DOT-HUD-EPA Partnership for Sustainable Communities.

FTA is extending the comment period on its proposed rule for Capital Project Management to December 2, 2011, to allow interested parties time to carefully review the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) issued September 13, 2011. Also, FTA will hold a webinar on November 10, 2011, to enable the public to ask questions and to clarify any misunderstandings regarding the NPRM or the Federal Transit Administrator's Dear Colleague letter of September 30, 2011.