To answer your question, I waded through the USDOT/FTA’s annual budget recommendations listed since FY97, and I can truly feel that we aren’t being singled out. And, we aren’t the only metropolitan area to have more than one proposal fail in that interval. Los Angeles, the District of Columbia, and New York City also have that similar distinction. But, for the most part, LA, DC, and NYC appear to have gotten back up, fixed their failed plans and come back again in fairly short order. Our failed projects have not rebounded as successfully or as quickly. DC, being the political hub that it is, has also had projects move forward in the ‘Medium-Low’ range where other projects well outside of the District not faring as well.
Without diving in to each of the failed proposals, the reasons for failure usually are from shortfalls in local funding, unexpected cost overruns during the Preliminary Engineering phase, or disagreements between stakeholders. All issues that we’ve stumbled into with our two failed proposals.
In FY97, the south Boston Piers, Phase 2, Los Angeles Eastside Corridor Extension, Oklahoma City MAPS Link and Portland South/North Corridor failed to make it past Preliminary Engineering. Austin’s Northwest/North Central Corridor, Hartford’s Griffin Line, Los Angeles’ West Central, Maryland’s Waldorf Corridor Study, Miami’s East/West Corridor, Norfolk’s Virginia Beach Corridor, San Diego’s Mission Valley East Corridor, and Vermont’s Burlington-Essex Corridor failed to make it past the Major Investment Study/Systems Planning stage.
In FY98, Boston’s Piers, Phase 2, Los Angeles’ Eastside Corridor Extension, San Francisco’s Bayshore, and Washington’s Metrorail to Largo Town Center failed at Preliminary Engineering. Some of the same agencies which failed at getting Major Investment Studies showed up again and not making the cut. This is the first entry for the RTP Regional Transit Plan to show up, in the Major Investment Study.
FY99’s Annual Report is currently not available.
FY00 had Salt Lake City’s Downtown Connector fail at the FFGA stage, but later did get funded. Dallas-Fort Worth’s ‘RAILTRAN’ appeared to have failed in the Final Design stage as did Seattle-Tacoma’s Sounder Commuter rail in their first design proposal. There were numerous other failures too numerous to even begin to list them, some of which do get resurrected later. ‘RAILTRAN’ eventually becomes Trinity Railway Express which is now in operation, and Seattle-Tacoma’s Sounder system finally does get funded and continues in operation to the present.
FY01 sees Baltimore’s Central Corridor Light Rail double tracking, Chicago’s Metra Central Kane Corridor get some money for Preliminary Engineering even though they scored a ‘Low-Medium.’ Fort Lauderdale’s Tri-Rail Commuter Upgrade scored a ‘Low-Medium’ in the Final Design phase and still moved forward. And, the DC MetroRail’s Dulles Corridor scored a ‘Low-Medium’ in Preliminary Engineering while still getting funding.
FY02 didn’t see much in the way of denials. Raleigh-Durham’s Regional Transit Plan, Phase 1 was in the Preliminary Engineering phase at this point.
FY03 saw some familiar players fizzling in Preliminary Engineering – Cincinnati’s Interstate 71 Corridor LRT, Miami’s North 27th Avenue, San Juan’s Tren Urbano Minillas Extension, and Tampa’s Tampa Bay Regional Rail System.
FY04 had Fort Collins’ Mason Street Transportation Corridor, New Orleans Desire Corridor, and Minneapolis Northstar Corridor Rail Project not be recommended for Preliminary Engineering. Minneapolis came back with a revised plan which did get funded. Tampa still could not get past Preliminary Engineering, and are still stuck in a perpetual planning mode to the present - likely moving forward with BRT than regional rail.
FY05 had Raleigh-Durham’s Regional Rail System moving into the Final Design phase with a ‘Medium’ rating at a total capital cost of $843M and $413M to be requested from the FTA (49%). Boston’s Silver Line, Phase 3, Fort Collins’ Mason Corridor, Los Angeles’ Mid-City/Exposition LRT, Philadelphia’s Schulkill Valley MetroRail not get recommended at the Preliminary Engineering phase. Los Angeles’s Exposition line eventually returns with revisions and has how been built.
FY06 has the same players struggling to make it past the Preliminary Engineering phase. The Raleigh-Durham Regional Rail has a ‘Medium’ rating going in to the Final Design, but with New Starts being asked for 60% funding from which is a red flag.
FY07 has Raleigh-Durham’s Regional Rail falling into a ‘Medium-Low’ finance rating. Philadelphia’s Schuylkill Valley MetroRail is also in trouble, getting a ‘Low’ rating. The Schuylkill Valley project failed, and is now cancelled due to lack of federal funding. Efforts to recurrect the project have not gained much traction, due in no small part that the line is actively owned/operated by Norfolk Southern.
FY08 sees the Portland South Corridor I-205/Portland Mall LRT in trouble as also Seattle’s University Link LRT Extension right at the Full Funding Grant Agreement. Raleigh-Durham Regional Rail, Phase 1 has now fallen off of the table.
FY09 sees the New York Access to the Region’s Core, Sacramento’s South Corridor Phase 2, San Francisco’s Central Subway LRT struggling at Preliminary Engineering. Stamford’s Urban Transitway, and Wilmington DE’s Improvements in the NEC corridor also are struggling in the Final Design phase.
FY10, FY11, FY12, FY13, FY14, FY15, and FY16 see pretty much all projects in the pipeline moving forward with scores in the ‘Medium,’ Medium-High,’ and ‘High’ at all levels of the process. Projects in trouble in FY09 appear to have moved forward. But, New York’s Access to the Region’s Core has dropped out because of New Jersey pulling support for the project.
FY17 sees the Durham-Orange LRT showing up for the first time in New Starts Project Development with a capital cost listed at $1.8B with a total Capital Investment Grant request of $910M at 50%. It doesn’t have a score at this point.
FY18 sees the Durham-Orange LRT still listed in Project Development with no rating listed. The New Jersey-New York Secaucus-Hudson Tunnel Project first appears in the table.
FY19 sees the Durham-Orange LRT now being listed as ‘Medium’ with a capital cost listed at $2.4B and total Capital Investment Grant of $1.2B meeting the standard 50%. No other projects on the table appear to be in trouble.
FY20 sees the Durham-Orange LRT moving in to the New Starts Engineering phase with a continued ‘Medium’ rating. The New Jersey Hudson County North Portal Bridge and New Jersey-New York Secaucus-Hudson Tunnel Project, keys for the Amtrak Gateway, are scoring ‘Medium-Low’ which is an ominous sign. The financial plan for the tunnel changed significantly, which resulted in an overall project cost increase from $13.6B to $13.7B, due to an increase in the finance charges from $2.1B to $2.3B. That being said, it’s being given a high priority and still appears on target for a FFGA with the tunnel opening for revenue service by 2030.
So, there aren’t a lot of projects showing up since FY09 as ‘Medium-Low.’ That means one of two things: 1) the local transit systems are learning the rules and doing their homework before submitting a proposal, or 2) the FTA isn’t being as robust with their Annual Report now as they used to be. Twenty years ago, that document could run as much as 400 pages including the funding recommendations and an overview of each New Start system. Now, the document may be only 16 pages.
All of these can be found at: Annual Report on Funding Recommendations | FTA
[Am thankful for my working copy of Acrobat. Downloaded the pdf’s from the FTA website. Deleted the extra pages outside of the core financing tables, and then exported them to Excel. Made the process move much more smoothly, but it also made me wistful of my days doing my post-doctoral health policy work - having to physically go over to the Duke Medical library, pull the bound journal volumes, copy the specific articles, and then manually transcribe the data to begin the meta-analysis. Oy, what a difference!!]
If someone ever makes an AI-based natural-language processor that finds stats like this for you, I swear you’d make so much bank from lazy people like me.
