Federal Transit Administration July 2016 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This notice details the application requirements and procedures to obtain funding for the installation of Positive Train Control (PTC) systems required under the Railroad Safety Improvement Act of 2008, as amended by the Positive Train Control Enforcement and Implementation Act of 2015. The opportunities described in this notice are available under Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance number 20.321, ``Positive Train Control.'' FRA will review applications for funding under this NOFO and will select the projects for funding. FTA will award the grant funds and administer and manage the grants after award. FRA will help FTA monitor the PTC implementation and progress of the grantees. In addition, applicants should contact FRA with PTC technical questions.

FTA has placed in the docket and on its Web site proposed guidance in the form of two FTA guidebooks to facilitate implementation of FTA's Transit Asset Management program: (1) ``Guideway Performance Restriction Calculation'' and (2) ``Facility Condition Assessment.'' The purpose of the proposed guidebooks is to inform the transit community of calculation methodologies for state of good repair performance measures for infrastructure and facilities. By this notice, FTA seeks public comment on the proposed guidebooks.

The Federal Transit Administration is publishing a final rule to define the term state of good repair and to establish minimum Federal requirements for transit asset management that will apply to all recipients and subrecipients of chapter 53 funds that own, operate, or manage public transportation capital assets. This final rule requires public transportation providers to develop and implement out transit asset management (TAM) plans. TAM plans must include an asset inventory, condition assessments of inventoried assets, and a prioritized list of investments to improve the state of good repair of their capital assets. This final rule also establishes state good repair standards and four state of good repair (SGR) performance measures. Transit providers are required to set performance targets for their capital assets based on the SGR measures and report their targets, as well as information related to the condition of their capital assets, to the National Transit Database.

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) announces the allocation of $834,612,566 through the Public Transportation Emergency Relief Program (Emergency Relief Program, Catalogue of Federal Domestic Assistance #20.527) for recovery projects to three FTA recipients with estimated damages that exceed the amounts of funding previously made available: The Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York, the New Jersey Transit Corporation, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Funds allocated in this notice are in addition to funds allocated on March 29, 2013 (78 FR 19357), May 29, 2013 (78 FR 32296), and November 5, 2014 (79 FR 65762), and brings the total amount of Hurricane Sandy Emergency Relief funds allocated by FTA to date to $10.088 billion. Of that amount, $5,196,184,125 has been allocated for emergency response, recovery, and rebuilding projects and $4,891,883,625 has been allocated for resilience projects, which are designed to protect transit systems in the Hurricane Sandy disaster area from damages associated with future storms. With this notice, FTA has now fully allocated all of the funding made available under the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013 (Appropriations Act, Pub. L. 113-2). FTA is allocating funds consistent with the requirements of the Appropriations Act, the FTA Emergency Relief Program 49 U.S.C. 5324, the Final Rule for the Emergency Relief Program, 49 CFR part 602, published in the Federal Register on October 7, 2014 (78 FR 23806), and all previously announced FTA policies and procedures for Hurricane Sandy Emergency Relief funding. In addition, this notice establishes a procedure for recipients to request the reallocation of funding previously allocated for resilience projects to fund eligible disaster recovery expenses in excess of the total amount of funding available from previous allocations, insurance payments, and the expected local cost share. Funds reallocated under this procedure must be used for disaster recovery expenses or be returned to FTA upon completion of the recovery effort. Reallocation requests are subject to the terms and conditions specified in this notice and must be approved by FTA. Unless specifically revised by this notice, all previously published program policies and requirements associated with Hurricane Sandy recovery and rebuilding funding remain in effect.