Relaxed federal standard could lift Triangle's light-rail hopes

President Obama’s Federal Transit Administration has reversed a strict cost-effectiveness standard, instituted under the Bush administration, that helped kill Triangle Transit’s light-rail plan in 2006.

Now, when the feds review competing funding proposals for big transit projects, they’ll give more weight to “livability” values. Measuring more than improved commuter travel times and the cost of providing this improvement, the FTA also will look for environmental, community and economic benefits.

"We're going to free our flagship transit capital program from long-standing requirements that have allowed us only to green-light projects that meet very narrow cost and performance criteria," Ray LaHood, Obama’s transportation secretary, told a Washington audience last week.

"Instead, as we evaluate major transit projects going forward, we'll consider all the factors that help communities reduce their carbon footprint, spur economic activity and relieve congestion."

He listed six criteria for federal New Starts transit project funding:

• Economic development
• Mobility improvements
• Environmental benefits
• Operating efficiencies
• Cost effectiveness
• Land use

Now with less restrictive federal standards, more cities should be able to qualify for federal funding. A new rail transit question is: Will there be enough federal money to go around?

Triangle leaders complained in 2006 that the old FTA rules unfairly favored giant urban transit agency requests to expand existing rail lines, and made it nearly impossible for a mid-size city to get federal help with a start-up rail project.

Charlotte was one of the last cities to win start-up funding before the strict standard took effect, and the Triangle was one of the first to lose under the new rules. But the Bush rules also hurt Charlotte, making it difficult to design its system for larger platforms and longer trains that local leaders said they needed.

Now Triangle leaders and Triangle Transit, the publicly owned three-county agency, are working on a modified plan that would at least get started without a dime of federal help – buying the first new buses and laying the first segments of track with state money and the proceeds of a proposed half-cent transit sales tax.

The new approach, if Triangle voters approve the sales tax, will correct another big problem that crippled the first effort four years ago – the lack of a strong local revenue source to cover a healthy share of project costs.

Leaders in a number of cities praised LaHood’s announcement last week, saying their transit ideas were all about making cities more green and livable.