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"National Freight Strategic Plan and FAST Act Freight Provisions" by John Drake (328 KB)
Nicole Coene
Good afternoon or good morning to those of you in the West. Welcome to the Talking Freight Seminar Series. My name is Nicole Coene and I will moderate today’s seminar. Today’s topic is: National Freight Strategic Plan and FAST Act Freight Provisions.
Before I go any further, I want mention that recently we have been experiencing issues with the voice over IP in Adobe Connect. DOT is working to resolve this issue; however a permanent fix is not yet in place. If you begin to experience poor audio quality while listening to this webinar via your computer the best solution is to call the teleconference line. If the computer audio completely disconnects, please bear with us a moment while we work to reconnect the VOIP as quickly as possible.
Today we’ll have one presentation, given by:
Today’s seminar will last 90 minutes, with 40 minutes allocated for the speaker, and the final 50 minutes for audience Question and Answer. If during the presentations you think of a question, you can type it into the chat area. Please make sure you send your question to “Everyone”. Our subject matter experts will be answering questions both via the chat box during the presentation and via discussion after the presentation. If time allows, we will open up the phone lines for questions as well. If we run out of time and are unable to address all questions we will attempt to get written responses from the presenters to the unanswered questions. Lastly, you may also send questions or comments to Freight@dot.gov.
The PowerPoint presentation used during the seminar is available for download from the file download box in the lower right corner of your screen. The presentation will also be available online within the next few weeks, along with a recording and a transcript. I will notify all attendees once these materials are posted online.
Talking Freight seminars are eligible for 1.5 certification maintenance credits for AICP members. In order to obtain credit for today’s seminar, you must have logged in with your first and last name or if you are attending with a group of people you must type your first and last name into the chat box. I have included more detailed instructions in the file share box on how to obtain your credits after the seminar.
For those of you, who are not AICP members but would like to receive PDH credits for this webinar, please note that FHWA does not formally offer PDHs, however, it may be possible to receive PDHs for your participation in Talking Freight if you are able to self-certify. To possibly receive PDHs, please download the agenda from the file download box and submit this agenda to your respective licensing agency.
Finally, I encourage everyone to please also download the evaluation form from the file share box and submit this form to me after you have filled it out.
I’m now going to turn it over to Caitlin Hughes Rayman, Director of the Office of Freight Management and Operations for the Federal Highway Administration for introductory remarks.
Caitlin Hughes Rayman
Good morning to the West Coast and good afternoon to the East Coast. Welcome to the special edition of Talking Freight. There is a lot happening right now in the freight world and we are here to give you updates on any of the provisions that you have been asking us about. There will be an opportunity to ask questions on the phone line and in the chat pod. I would like to turn the presentation now over to John Drake, our Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy.
John Drake
Thank you, Caitlin. Good afternoon, or good morning everyone. I appreciate your time today to talk through what the department is working on in terms of freight transportation. We are going to have two parts of this presentation and I will walk through the first part. It will be on the discussion of the Draft National Freight Strategic Plan that the department released last year and then we will follow that up with a discussion about the various freight provisions in the newly passed FAST Act that the President signed into law in December of last year. The reason why we are starting with the National Freight Strategic Plan is because this really for us, lays out what we think is an important story that needs to be told for number of reasons. This is a fundamentally critical aspect of our economy in terms of moving goods and products that are critical to our way of life and also because it allows for an enormous amount of people to be employed both directly because of freight transportation services and an ancillary to it as well. Unfortunately, we feel that in many ways this story is not being given the attention that it deserves even though it really is an important story. Many of us never really think through how we are able to pick the food we see at our grocery store or the various products we see at a grocery store or at the Target or the Walmart.
A lot of that is made possible because of how those products are delivered and how they are transported oftentimes, not just throughout the country but also internationally as well. So, part of this was an attempt to lay out where the department sees challenges and trends and then put forth a series of strategies and solutions as an attempt to address those challenges. Let's start off by talking about the freight transportation system itself. So, first of all, our freight system is approximately 7,000,000 miles of highway, roads, railroads, it also includes ports, airports, waterways, etc. It is not just that infrastructure because there are also 2.5 million combination trucks, millions of single unit trucks, 24,000 diesel electric locomotives, millions of freight rail cars, and almost 40,000 rustic because it operates the system. It also has 3.1 million Americans that are employed in operating these vehicles and operations and then 44 million jobs that directly depend on freight transportation.
Every day our freight system transports 55 million tons of goods worth more than $49 billion. As we look at this and as we look at where we are going over the next 10 or 15 years, the department’s evaluation was based in part on the various literature that has been produced, not just in the public sector but also the private sector as well, by academics, by freight transportation providers, and others. It also included an advisory committee, the National Freight Advisory Committee, which was established to help us see through and understand the key trends and challenges that face our continued ability to move freight in this country safely, efficiently, and accurately as well. Specifically, that is the expected growth in freight tonnage. Here, we see our population is continuing to grow. We are expecting it to grow from 320 million people in 2015 to 389 million people by 2045. This is going to result in increased demand for infrastructure to move the freight. The second trend is underinvestment in the freight transportation system. I alluded to this in the beginning, but in December the President signed into law the FAST Act. The FAST Act covers the Federal funding levels for the transportation programs for the next five years. One of the observations we had for the FAST Act, while it represents a modest increase in the overall funding at the federal level, all the studies of the departments indicated that the modest bump up in federal spending will result in a net reduction in overall service of the transportation system by the end of five years. What we mean by that is we expect that even though we are spending a modest increase, we will see worse levels of congestion and worse levels of service by the end of the five-year bill. The third trend and challenges is difficulty in planning and implementing freight transportation projects. Freight transportation projects are very beneficial. Oftentimes, they are able to have an enormous benefit cost analysis. They are public and private operators. Oftentimes, planning and decision-making to advance specific freight transportation projects can be complicated because there are different goals that are desired by those ultimately using and managing the system.
Whether it be a grade-crossing within the city or intermodal facility. Whether it be meeting a rail from a port to a loading facility. Oftentimes you have state, local and private planners and decision-makers involved in the process. All of those different players will have different desired outcomes. It can be difficult to move these projects through the planning process. Additionally, from a political level, we have observed that freight transportation projects do not sell as well to the general public as, say, a transit project where the public will much more readily see the additional buses that have been brought online as opposed to a cargo train that could offloading unloading and on the road. This may not be immediately observable by the local public. The fourth one is the continued need to address safety and security for civilians. For us, this is a mixed bag and that we have realized a huge increase in safety over the last 20 years through a variety of different policies in the federal and state governments. But also, in the private sector, bringing online new technologies and new practices that has helped improve the overall safety of the system. With that being said, we still see almost 4000 fatalities on our roads every year as a result of large truck crashes. We see a huge number of injuries as well. For us at the department, every life is precious. We need to make sure that we are doing everything in our ability to continue to bring that number down. There are also fatalities and injuries across all modes of transportation. It is important that we address these issues the best that we can. On the security side since 9-11, the department and all of the federal government have been doing more to help. It is certainly not everything so we need to look at additional ways to further improve security of our goods moving into our country.
Finally, the resilience side. As we're seeing with Hurricane Sandy, it is important that we make sure that all of our infrastructure and all of our various vehicles and so on our resilient to the challenges that our in front of us as well. The fifth is increased global economic competition. This is an interesting one for us in that we are increasingly seeing a very complex global economy. We are seeing the rise and new economies in Asia with China, and with India, etc. They are presenting new obstacles and challenges and also new opportunities as well. We are also seeing trading patterns shift. For example, the new expansion of the Panama Canal, we're expecting to see how changes in how shippers are moving their goods to the US. There may be shifts from the West Coast to the East Coast. We're not sure at this point but, for us, it just means we need to be vigilant about the changes to as we are making planning decisions we are aware of these challenges and developments so we are making sure we are making investments that will stand the test of time. Finally, the application deployment of new technology. This, for us, is an area of huge opportunity. It also presents some challenges as well. As we see with deployment of driverless cars and driverless trucks, there are opportunities to dramatically increase safety by removing safety challenges that we see every day like drunk driving, distracted driving, etc. by putting in place technology and applications into our vehicles that help to heavily mitigate those safety challenges as well as new technologies that could help us speed of the inspection and processing of cargo that is crossing our borders and into our ports, etc. So, I am going to turn it over to Reggie.
Reggie Greer
Hello everyone. We want to get your thoughts and insights early. So, as I post this next question, if you have a comment and you wish to give it to us, please press *1 or comment in the chat box. In your opinion, what are the likely trends and challenges freight transportation in the next 30 years? As you offer your insights and thoughts throughout the presentation, we will work to include you in the conversation because we feel that your insights and comments are very important.
Comments from the Chat Pod
John Drake
For those of you that have not had an opportunity to review the National Freight Strategic Plan, we spent quite a bit of time talking about all of these challenges. I think the commentator is right. These are challenges we identify. We were able to get some certainty with the FAST Act in that it lets us know what the federal funding levels are going to be over the next five years. It also gives us a good picture of what the regulatory priorities will be over that same period of time. But, there is a lot of uncertainty here that we cannot account for that we need to be vigilant for and have in place, not just as a regulatory scheme but also as an environment in which we can respond to changes in the marketplace. I think the most obvious example is the rise in oil shipments and also the drop off in coal shipment in the intermodal and the rail sector. If you look at the annual report of any of the railroads 10 years ago, none of these changes were ever anticipated to any degree.
Reggie Greer
I am looking at my team around the table in the room with me. Are there any other trends and challenges people identify for us?
Shira Bergstein
There are a lot of people talking about challenges in urban environment and how there are funding constraints and issues in getting these projects constructed.
John Drake
We can talk a little bit about this down the road, but there is a new program in the FAST Act which is a freight and highway program that we are excited about. We will get a notice of funding opportunity out the door in the next couple of weeks. This, for the first time, set up a program where there is an explicit expectation that freight gets funded through this. It is a $4.5 billion program. We will talk about it as we move forward in the presentation, but it is one tool that will help us further address some of these specific funding challenges.
Let's move on and talk to some of the strategies we outlined in the National Freight Strategic Plan to address these six key trends and challenges. What we did, we took three separate buckets of strategies and solutions and then identified a series of steps to address these concerns. These concerns were infrastructure, institutional, and financial bottlenecks. I will go through each one individually and talk about the individual strategies of each. For infrastructure bottlenecks, this for us is physical location. You have four lane highways that are going down to a two-lane bridge that introduces a bottleneck. Where you have got border crossings with not enough gates to support the traffic going through. You also have at-grade railroads crossings and you get congestion on the road outside of the ports for commuters and so on that has to deal with that. The next bottleneck is our infrastructure strategies. These are strategies that address infrastructure bottlenecks. Specifically looking at what steps the department can take reduce congestion to improve overall performance so targeting investments to address bottlenecks, improve the safety, security, and resilience of the freight transportation system.
Facilitating intermodal connectivity. Identifying major trade gateways and multimodal national freight networks and corridors. Mitigating impacts of freight projects. Finally, supporting research and promoting adoption of new technologies and best practices. The next bottlenecks are institutional bottlenecks. As discussed, these are some of the bottlenecks that make it difficult to plan, prioritize, implement, and fund freight transportation projects. While we have many different partners and processes in place to try to advance these projects we recognize that often times there are different capabilities, parties, and objectives that have to be reconciled to plan and implement projects. On a streamlined side, one of the things we were excited about with the FAST Act is that it introduced a number of provisions to help us streamline and add in more transparency and accountability to the federal review process. Prior to the enactment of the FAST Act, the Department working in partnership with it also provided a number of steps including a dashboard to help bring more transparency into the process for local and state and other stakeholders. We abide by in advancing the review of the transportation process as opposed to one department or one office doing it, passing it to another office which may or may not have the desire to focus on that review.
We are also trying to facilitate multi-jurisdictional, multimodal collaboration solutions. These are trying to bring all parties together at the local and state level to drive solutions so that again we're not getting bogged down in a parallel review processes or getting stakeholders to a point where they can't agree on an outcome of the project in question. Improving coordination between the public and private sectors, this is where we think the FAST Act gets a lot of support with the new freight program which will help to ensure better data and models. We recognize that there is a lot of data out there and often times it is not in the hand of the decision-makers that need it most. One of the things we want to emphasize is that local and state decision-makers have the best data they can get in hand to improve overall decision-making. This isn’t just local data but also data that helps inform where movements are happening at a national level so they could take that into account when they're making investments. Finally, developing the next generation of workforce. What we're seeing is that the freight transportation industry, it is a few years getting along in the terms of the agent workforce in terms of other industries in the US. This is going to result in a capacity challenge for the industry.
The number of truck drivers or railroad engineers or train operators, it is dropping off over the next few years. There isn't the amount of education and people entering into the workforce to replace those leaving the workforce. So, we are looking to improve opportunities for those that want to enter into the freight transportation workforce. We have done a few things in this area. In the truck and bus safety agencies, FMCSA worked with Congress to pass legislation that makes it easier for veterans who did truck driving for example, while they were in the military, now have an easier pass to transition to become truck drivers in the driving industry. Going in the next bottleneck, it is critical to establish federal freight transportation funding that is substantial, continuing, multimodal, and reliable. We’ve talked a lot about the new freight and highway program that came along with the FAST Act. There is also a formula freight program that was also made available but that doesn't discount other tools that the department has at its disposal. We have a number of federal financing tools that provide financial resources. We also recognize that another added benefit of these existing programs helps to better leverage state and local dollars further than they would otherwise. Some of the strategies we have identified are ensuring dedicated freight funding. We talk about the FAST Act here, but also using the BATIC and the TIGER program as well to continue to support freight transportation. We are getting ready to release a NOFA for the TIGER program. This one will be the 8th round of TIGER funding. Historically, approximately one quarter of all TIGER funding has gone to freight transportation projects. That is something that we are really proud of and we hope that will continue as this program moves forward.
Ryan Endorf
John, can we address a couple of questions that we have in the chat box? The first question is Institutional Strategies: what role do you envision MPOs and RTPOs playing in project planning and reviews?
John Drake
I think they play a critical role. It depends on the size and specification of the MPO in question. There has been a lot of effort in the last couple of reauthorization bills to elevate the responsibility of MPO in terms of advancing and identifying freight transportation projects more so than they ever have done. But there is also the recognition that they need to be working in collaboration with freight stakeholders as well. For the FAST Act one of the preconditions of the freight formula program is states have to set up Freight Advisory Communities to identify the freight transportation project as they occur. That being said we're trying to better tie the identification of freight transportation projects by the users and the local government, to ultimately get it funded at the state level through the project and the various discretion programs we have. With the freight and highway program MPOs are eligible to apply for funding through that program as well. It gives them one additional tool in their toolbox to advance freight transportation projects.
Ryan Endorf
Do you see a role in utilizing Workforce Invest Boards (WIBs) in dealing with next Generation of Transportation Workforce?
Eric Gabler
In terms of comments we are receiving where people have suggestions that are useful, it is something we will add to the final Draft of the National Freight Strategic Plan. Yes of course, they have been around since 1998.
Ryan Endorf
One of the questions was the deadline to submit public comments on the Draft National Freight Strategic Plan. We currently have it available for public comments. We will have a slide later that will have the link. We do not currently have a deadline to submit the comments, but we do anticipate the release of the Federal Register notice soon. We expect it will be approximately 45 days from the release of that notice.
John, one other big question that came up was how will the draft plan be revised for FAST Act? Can you discuss how the Department is anticipating going forward with the Final National Freight Strategic Plan and maybe touch it a bit on the Freight Multimodal Network?
John Drake
That is a good question. One of the things we're pretty happy with is the Draft National Freight Strategic Plan went quite a bit beyond the specific statutory requirements outlined in MAP-21. Because of that, we feel like we have at least in some way anticipated and tried to grapple with the additional elements that were included in the FAST Act. In the coming days we are going to be issuing a Federal Register notice that will affect the closing out of the comment period for the Draft National Freight Strategic Plan. That Federal Register notice will outline where we see the changes between the Draft National Freight Strategic Plan that went out and how that requirement changed with the FAST Act in terms of where we feel like there is either deficiencies and what we put forth and where we feel like where we need to get more comments from the public. Also we may have a question of emphasis in some of the strategies we put forward and what we are going to do is based on not just the comments we received already but the comments received after the publication of the Federal Register notice, we will then pull that together, work that through a long with the comments received from the National Freight Advisory Committee into the final product that we hope to have out before the end of the year.
Going to the second question in regards of the National Freight Network, again, I think this is something where we are proud that we felt like Congress listened to something we were proposing in the draft plan which is that we need to be looking at freight multimodal and we need to look at the system as the whole as oppose to the portion of just the highway network. While it is critical it doesn't paint the picture of freight movement in the country. The draft plan included a multimodal freight network that was more expensive than what was finally codified under the FAST Act. We will continue forward to seek comments on the National Freight Network. However, we will do that through a different public comment process from the comment period on the National Freight Strategic Plan. What that will do, well, so what that means basically is, in the coming weeks, we are going to be issuing a Federal Registry Notice that outlines the changes to the National Freight Network that we make based on the changes in FAST Act and then going out and seeking public comment on this changes in the overall network as a whole. The idea there is to finally do what Congress requires but also make sure we are getting this right. We will be taking in comments there and then hoping to get the final designated network out later this year.
Ryan Endorf
The statute requires that the department publish a multimodal freight network within 180 days from enactment so that is roughly the beginning of June is the statutory deadline.
Reggie Greer
There are a lot of great comments and questions coming in on the chat feature. If you follow along on the computer you can see the question there now and we certainly want your input. It reads: what, if any, additional strategies you suggest US DOT add to the freight strategic plan? In the chat box please continue to leave your comments. We had two commenters; one is saying US DOT should encourage state DOTs to adopt designated freight routes and also driverless trucks technology. Continue to leave your comments there. We certainly will take them with great appreciation.
Comments from the Chat Pod
Reggie Greer
The second question is what areas of the Draft National Freight Strategic Plan need additional information or improvement? If you will let us know what areas you think needed to be improved or, should be clarified or needs additional information, let us know in the chat box or press *1 on your phone to chime into the webinar. Those around the room, are there any areas that you have identified or any new pieces that we have not put up there?
Comments from the Chat Pod
John Drake
Why don't we close out this portion? First of all, I see a number of comments coming in. We definitely want to hear from you on this. We would like to encourage you all to do is you should see a screen on opportunities how to submit comments on the National Freight Strategic Plan: https://www.transportation.gov/freight .This will take you to the freight webpage. It will take you to the draft of the plan and also the National Freight Network as put forward last year. Again, just remind everybody that will undergo revision, but it does give you a sense of what we're thinking and why we decided to include airports, border crossings, etc., and our thinking.
Here we will talk through the key freight to provisions of the FAST Act. The first one we want to talk about is the National Significant Freight & Highway Projects. This is one we are excited about. It provides us with a pot of funding that could target freight specific projects in a way we haven't had before. The $4.5 billion program over five years, this year, we have $800 million available. These are all title $23. It is guaranteed money. Eligible activities include highway freight projects on the National Highway Freight Network. It also includes Highway and bridge projects including projects in National Scenic Areas. Intermodal projects, it is important to flag here is that the FAST Act; it allotted a total of $500 million for multimodal projects over the entirety of the five-year bill. Also finally, rail-highway grade crossing or grade separation projects. One important thing to note is that these projects, the highway rail grade crossing and separation projects do not fall under the multimodal cap. There are a variety of eligible applicants including states, MPOs, tribes, county, and other political entities.
There is also a unique selection process that hasn’t been in place before which is that we have to advisee Congress 60 days ahead of actually awarding grants which projects we intend to provide funding for. They have that period to consider our recommendation. They have the option of passing a joint resolution disapproving, if they so wish if one project or all projects that we have identified. This could complicate the process for both the department and Congress. Finally, there are monies set aside for rural projects and smaller projects for other freight provision. We talk a lot about this already but there is a revised multimodal freight policy as well as a multimodal National Freight Strategic Plan is required. Advisory committees are encouraged. There is the National Multimodal Freight Network that we talked about already. The National Highway Freight Network would include the Primary Highway Freight System (PHFS) which is approximately 41,000 miles. It includes critical rural freight corridors that are identified by the state as well as urban freight corridors that are identified by the state in consultation with the MPOs and the portion of the interstate in the PHFS. This system is predesignated every five years. It allows 3% growth added to the network. The National Highway Freight Program is $1.2 billion per year on average. Eligible activities under this program include construction, operational improvements, freight planning, and performance measures. It is highway focused but there is a10% flexibility for rail, port, and intermodal projects. State freight plans are required for formula dollars beginning in fiscal year 2018. The federal share is determined under 23 USC 120. This also repeals special Federal share for freight projects.
Reggie Greer
Are there any additional thoughts or insights that you have on Freight provisions in the FAST Act or the draft National Freight Strategic Plan that you weren’t able to share with us previously? Again, you can comment in the chat box leaving your thoughts and insights with us or you can press *1 and we can chime you into the conversation. Are there any thoughts that you haven't shared or comments that we should work to the conversation?
Comments from the Chat Pod
Ryan Endorf
Several folks have asked for a timeline of the different products related to freight that are coming out. I just want to note that some of the things we can only give an anticipated timeline for. We have to work with our federal partners, as well as the Office of Management and Budget on various projects. The timeline is not set in stone because of those coordination’s. We can work to try and get some of those documents out there so that you have an idea of when to expect different things coming from the Department.
Reggie Greer
Are there any other comments or insights?
Nicole Coene
We will move on to the question and answer portion of our webinar. If you have a question please type it into the chat box or if you would like to ask a question over the phone please press * 1.
Ryan Endorf
We have a couple of questions here on the Nationally Significant Freight and Highway Projects Program. I will start with those. Are corridor projects eligible over the $100 million threshold (i.e. neighboring grade separations along the same rail corridor)?
Shira Bergstein
Thanks for your question. I will provide a general response for now but I think that we really want to come to specific eligibility questions regarding the new Nationally Significant Freight and Highway Projects Program. We want to hold off until the Notice of Funding Opportunity is published. That should be by the end of the month so you can see exactly what the language is and we want to avoid as much confusion as possible. In general, there are a couple of ways to determine the minimum project size for this new program. If it’s $100 million or if your state apportionment is less than that, 30% is for fiscal year 2015 and the project is location in more than one state there is a way of calculating it based on the state’s apportionment. I know that sounds really confusing so I would encourage you to wait until the Notice of Funding is release. We are going to be putting of FAQ’s. We will have charts in the Notice that very clearly spell out exactly what the size requirements are. In general, yes, corridor projects will be eligible as long as they are combined meets the minimum size threshold.
Ryan Endorf
Another question we have related to that program: For projects that cross border of multiple states, can multiple states joined together to apply or submit only one application?
John Drake
There is only one applicant but that one applicant could be supported by other bodies. If, for example, you wanted to do a crossing between Washington State and Oregon, either state could submit the application and that application could be supported by the other states as well as by other local governments that are part of that state.
Ryan Endorf
We had a question earlier about working with our fellow partners, EPA, Department of Energy, and the Department of Commerce. Has DOT looked at combining resources with these other agencies to address multiple concerns along corridors?
John Drake
We do this to an extent. Oftentimes there are some statutory constrains on how each agency or each department can allocate its funding. We have seen from this process that there are always going to be opportunities to pursue collaboration. We are certainly seeing a lot of that, especially in the workforce side like DOL and Department of Transportation on skill training. But in terms of investment in specific corridors, not yet. That is something we can certainly pursue.
Ryan Endorf
How will the National Multimodal Freight Network impact the ability to spend funds since the FAST Act current language specifies only the primary freight network and rural and urban critical corridors?
John Drake
The multimodal network what they will do is that it presents the public where we feel like we need to spend our attention, essentially. We are always going to be resource constrained, not just in terms of dollars but human resources as well. So, what we're trying to lay out, this is where we think that, if we have a choice between something on the multimodal network versus something that is not, we are going to be spending our time on the multimodal network.
Ryan Endorf
Caitlin we have a couple questions about the intermodal freight corridor so I will turn that over to you for those.
For MPOs fewer than 50,000 people, the states are supposed to consulted with the MPO. For MPOs over 500,000 people, the MPOs so to consulted with the state. The question is how can credit the state mileage limit. The second question is what do you anticipate the final certification process with USDOT to look like, and will someone independently verify the statewide mileage limitation?
Caitlin Hughes Rayman
Well the mileage limitation is with respect to greater than or less than 2% of the network. We will put out a table that will let people know if they are considered a small mileage state or a large mileage state. That is actually the size of the MPO, not the mileage that relates to the critical urban and critical freight corridor designation. We will also be preparing guidance on critical urban and critical rural later this spring.
Ryan Endorf
We got a question earlier about the energy production areas and whether those will be within the Final National Freight Strategic Plan and the FAST Act.
John Drake
Yes, I think so. We discussed a certain amount in the draft plan. There is a much clearer emphasis on the movement of energy projects as part of the freight policy in the FAST Act. I would expect that there would probably be a deeper and lengthier conversation on energy movements in the final plan.
Ryan Endorf
Once the competitive freight grant program guidance is released in the next few weeks, how much time will applicants have to submit grant applications?
Shira Bergstein
That will be spelled out specifically in the Notice of Funding. It will not be a super long time. We are somewhat limited because we do have to get the dollars spent this year. We do have a requirement to notify Congress 60 days before the project are awarded. Because of that we are operating against some pretty significant time constraints. We are working day and night to get the Notice out as best as possible. The secretary sent out a letter last week outlining his vision for the program. Hopefully stakeholders are starting to identify projects and will be able to turn around applications as soon as the Notice gets published.
Ryan Endorf
We have one other question about the National Highway Freight Program. For the 10% flexible funding for rails/ports/intermodal projects, would the environmental docs be done by FHWA or would the funds flex to FRA, etc.
Caitlin Hughes Rayman
For the 1116 Formula Fund Program, those projects have to follow Title 23. So you are looking at following the Federal Highway regulations on NEPA, Buy American, and so forth. Also, I want to correct something I said earlier about critical urban and critical rural now that I read the question more closely I see that they are asking about the mileage cap on those designations. The guidance we will put out will go into more detail about the process for receiving those and the verification process. I don't have more details on it but I didn’t want to dismiss the question completely. We will address that in later guidance.
Shira Bergstein
I also wanted to clarify. There are a lot of questions here specific to the new National Significant Freight and Highway Projects Program. Once the Notice is released we will hold, at least four different webinars, specific to that program. We will be able to answer all of your questions about the program and/or projects in the course of those webinars. If you have questions we can respond via email. Those will be posted once the Notice of Funding is released.
Reggie Greer
I would like to go to the phone line. I believe Ann Snyder has a question or comment for us?
Ann Snyder
I have a quick question. Will financing through the RIFF or TIFIA program, will that able to account as a federal share in applying to the new freight discretionary program?
Shira Bergstein
That is one of those questions that because of the way the federal share works for this program, it is different than other programs. I want to hold off answering until the Notice is out and we can point to exactly how we will be counting other federal programs as a cost share.
Ann Snyder
Okay. Thank you.
Reggie Greer
Thank you, Ann. To those around the table, do we have any more questions or comments?
Nicole Coene
We can pause for a minute or two since we still have plenty of time. There are some people typing in. As well as, press *1 on your touchtone keypad if you would like to ask a question over the phone.
Caitlin Hughes Rayman
This is Caitlin. There is a question here from Sarah about critical urban freight corridors. Are they per urban area or total per state? That is by state. The amount is the cap set by statute by state. I recognize in some states that is not a lot of mileage. That is the amount given to the entire state.
We are looking through to see any final questions we might've messed. Some of these will be addressed by further guidance which will be forthcoming over the weeks and months ahead. We hope to be able to answer all of your questions in due time. If you did not get it answered, there will be many opportunities. The next opportunity to have conversations about the freight provisions will be next Monday, the 29th. It is one of those leap years. In the chat pod, somebody said Wednesday. But Monday, the 29th of February, there will be a Freight Summit to which you could participate either in person or online. You have to register for it so we encourage everybody to register in advance so we know how many lines make available. Shira, where do they register for it?
Reggie Greer
It is a survey monkey link. It was on the previous slide but I'll give it to you now. It is https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2016FreightSummit
Caitlin Hughes Rayman
We will get that published for you. We look forward to your participation in that Freight Summit. That will be followed by a series of webinars; both through the Talking Freight forum here and also OST led ones. In addition, the Federal Highway Administrator is conducting roundtables across the country to discuss the Freight Strategic Plan as well as freight in the economy. These are listening sessions. Look for those to be happening hopefully in a city near you. We will provide materials on the web following those so people can see the kinds of information that was prepared such as, handouts on the freight and economy statistics of that city, and, some good the state level information as well. You may want to refer to those if you are doing multi-planning so you can see some of the critical facts related to larger cities in your area. We look forward to your ongoing participation in our regular Talking Freight series. One way or another we will be able to provide ongoing and future information about the FAST Act provision and the National Freight Strategic Plan.
Ryan Endorf
We have several comments on the Freight Summit on the 29th. What is the purpose of the Freight Summit?
Reggie Greer
What we would like to do, since there is so much energy and excitement around what is going on with the freight agenda here at US DOT, this is the chance for anyone who is interested to learn about the National Freight Strategic Plan and freight provisions in the FAST Act and to do a deeper dive on some of the insights and thoughts and issues we discussed today.
For everyone who is registered, an agenda will come out shortly.
Caitlin Hughes Rayman
There is a question about whether there will be further details on the 41,000 mile highway network. Yes, that definitely will be clarified in future materials. I think it is important to note, that is actually the same network as what we use to call a comprehensive network. If you were familiar with the map that we released in 2013, it is the purple and orange map. It is 41,518 miles. That is the network that Congress designated to be the primary highway freight system which is the applicable network for the new program. So, there were shape files provided for the primary freight network but this is a bigger network of 41,518. We are refining those files and updating them to reflect that they are the primary freight highway system. These will be posted on the website when we release the guidance for the 1116 program. If you are interested in what the map looked like, the map is what we used call a comprehensive primary freight network.
Ryan Endorf
We had a question from Sean earlier. The question is specific to the National Freight Strategic Plan Appendix B, Performance Outcomes and Measures. The question asked about whether there will be further discussion on how it is developed and how it is useful.
Eric Gabler
This is Eric. The idea of the performance measure is to give the nation an idea if we are making progress or not and if we are accomplishing the goals which at the time were for the MAP-21 national freight policy. We tried to select performance measures at the DOT level that we could collect and process. Some of the goals are self-evident such as reducing congestion levels by 10% every 10 years. That particular goal was a stretch was because we are facing rising traffic levels. If people have insights into whether these goals are too hard or too weak, that is something we are interested in hearing about.
Ryan Endorf
Mike had a question about State Freight Plans and what they are required for. Those will only be required starting October 1, 2017. That will be specific to the National Highway Apportioned funds. You will not need to adopt the State Freight Plan in order to apply. The requirement kicks in October 1, 2017. It is for the National Highway Apportioned Fund Program. I just want to make that clear for everyone.
Caitlin Hughes Rayman
There are a lot of good questions about multistate corridor projects some for the formula program and some for the discretionary. We will have to cover those in guidance.
Shira Bergstein
The forthcoming notice will explain in greater detail the criteria we will use to evaluate applications for the discretionary programs.
Ryan Endorf
Erik Johnson had a question on the National Highway Freight Program. Do intermodal projects need to be developed as federal projects; and, does (or, will) USDOT have guidance on best practices for doing this?
Caitlin Hughes Rayman
That is Section 1116 Apportioned Program. That does follow all Title 20 requirements. So, yes.
As to best practices, Eric, I think the question would be what particular aspects of an intermodal project you're curious about? You can always submit questions to our office. All states have a federal highway division office. You can start there. We will look at all of these questions actually before we do further outreach.
Ryan Endorf
Abby had a question about, will the railroads really come to the table when creating the multimodal freight network, in keeping with the stated multimodal nature of this effort?
John Drake
The multimodal freight network requires that railroads are part of that map. It is not of the discretion of the railroads.
Ryan Endorf
We just got a couple of questions about State Freight Plans particularly those that were updated following the passing of MAP-21 and are compliant with MAP-21?
Yes, you will need to update your State Freight Plan but you do not have to do it all over again. If you updated your plan following MAP-21 and if it is compliant with the requirements of MAP-21, many of the requirements carry over into FAST Act. If they are already there you do not have to redo them. But FAST Act has a couple of new requirements including the physically constrained projects as well as the bottleneck analysis. If those aren’t currently part of your State Freight Plan, you will need to include those. We are in the process of developing guidance on this. To give you an idea of our perspective, we recognize that many states, updated their state freight plans. Our guidance will really focus on what they need to do to add in additionally to be able to comply with the FAST Act requirements. We would like our guidance to give people what they need to include as well as some optional elements that they could include. We're trying to hit the whole spectrum. You don't necessarily need to go through the entire process. We are working hard on the guidance now. We recognize that there is a deadline. It is our intention to get the guidance out to you as soon as possible. We are hoping later this spring.
Reggie Greer
Are there any more comments or insights that people have on what we discussed or anything that hasn't been brought up that you feel like you should be brought to the table at this time?
Caitlin Hughes Rayman
There is a question regarding the process for us to collect input to the National Freight Strategic Plan. Can you let them know again what we are putting out for comment and then we can wrap up?
John Drake
We believe that the draft plan is by and large compliant with requirements called out in the FAST Act. There may be some questions on emphasis but in terms of what is discussed and covered in the plan that in itself is compliant with the revised language in the FAST Act. I think it is important to note that there were not overly significant changes in the statutory requirements between MAP-21 and the FAST Act.
There is a difference in emphasis and also some slight differences in the freight policy that was codified in there as well. The biggest change is the recognition of a multimodal system as opposed to a highway system. MAP-21 established a Highway Freight Policy. The FAST Act laid out mostly a highway and a multimodal policy but the freight plan itself is tied to a multimodal freight policy. Again, will we be issuing a Federal Register notice in the days ahead that will lay out where we think more input is needed and where we are hoping to get additional comments from the public. But, by and large, that plan itself is the basis and still continues to be the draft of what we are hoping to be the FAST Act compliant National Freight Strategic Plan.
Caitlin Hughes Rayman
Thanks John. I also wanted to point out that there is an answer to a question here that was provided by one of our colleagues from federal highway. Thank you, Steve Clinger. He noted the cap for critical urban freight corridors is 10% of the Primary Highway Freight Network or 75 miles, whichever is greater. Thank you, Steve for that clarification.
Nicole Coene
We've gotten through all the questions and I don't see anything else coming in. I think we will go ahead and close out. The recorded version of this event will be available within the next few weeks on the Talking Freight website. The next seminar will be held on March 16, 2016 and the topic is still to be determined. Registration is not yet available. I will send a notice out through the Freight Planning LISTSERV announcing the topic and the availability of registration. I encourage you to join the Freight Planning LISTSERV if you have not already done so. Thank you to our presenters and to everyone attending. Please enjoy the rest of your day.
