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Urban Partnership Agreements: Congestion Relief Initiative Holds Promise; Some Improvements Needed in Selection Process

GAO-09-154 Published: Mar 25, 2009. Publicly Released: Mar 25, 2009.
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Highlights

As part of a broad congestion relief initiative, the Department of Transportation awarded about $848 million from 10 grant programs to five cities (Miami, Minneapolis, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle) in 2007 as part of the Urban Partnership Agreements (UPA) initiative. The UPA initiative is intended to demonstrate the feasibility and benefits of comprehensive, integrated, and innovative approaches to relieving congestion, including the use of tolling (congestion pricing), transit, technology, and telecommuting (4Ts). Congestion pricing involves charging drivers a fee that varies with the density of traffic. This report addresses congressional interest in (1) how well the department communicated UPA selection criteria, (2) whether it had discretion to allocate grant funds to UPA recipients and consider congestion pricing as a priority selection factor, and (3) how it is ensuring that UPA award conditions are met and results are assessed. GAO reviewed departmental documents, statutes and case law, and interviewed department officials and UPA applicants.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Transportation To better ensure that potential applicants for future congestion relief initiatives are aware of the criteria for assessing the applications, the Secretary of Transportation should communicate all selection criteria--and the relative weight to be given to the criteria--to potential applicants.
Closed – Implemented
In March 2009, we found that the Department of Transportation did not communicate (1) one of the 11 criteria that it used to select awardees and (2) the relative priority of the criteria to applicants for its congestion relief initiative. As a result, we recommended that potential applicants for future congestion relief initiatives are aware of the criteria for assessing the applications; the Secretary of Transportation communicate all selection criteria--and the relative weight to be given to the criteria--to potential applicants. In March 2010, the Department of Transportation agreed that it is its policy and practice to provide grant applicants with information on all factors needed to assemble a grant application. As a result, future grant applicants will have access to all selection criteria and the relative weight given to the criteria. Therefore, this recommendation is closed as implemented.
Department of Transportation For the Transportation, Community, and System Preservation program, the Secretary of Transportation should direct the Administrator, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), to give priority consideration only to applicants that meet all five statutory factors, as required by the grant statute.
Closed – Not Implemented
As of March 2010, The Department of Transportation continued to disagree with our legal analysis, but did not cite any additional rationale for its disagreement beyond what was presented in our report.

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Allocation (Government accounting)Appropriated fundsCommuter transportationEligibility criteriaEligibility determinationsEvaluation criteriaFederal aid for highwaysFederal aid for transportationFederal grantsstate relationsFund auditsGrant administrationGrant monitoringGrants to statesHighway planningHighway researchProgram evaluationRegional development programsSystems evaluationTechnologyTelecommutingTransportation industryTransportation planningUrban planningUrban transportation