An Open Letter to the FTA (The federal agency that doles out money for mass transit)

May 8th, 2009 at 12:54pm Common Sense Alliance 1530

In recent years much ado has been directed towards "earmarks", expenditures which members of Congress insert into spending bills without going through the normal review and evaluation process.

The premise seems to be that spending proposals that do go through the normal review and evaluation process are proven to be a good and sensible use of our money.

It turns out that you need look no further than Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley to find an example of the complete collapse of the oversight which should be provided by the established federal appropriations system.  

The following letter takes a new approach to the problem.  Since you can't get anyone to take responsibility as part of their professional duty, this is an experiment to see if this federal bureaucrat has a conscience.

Terry J. Rosapep
FTA Regional Administrator
12300 West Dakota Avenue Ste 310
Lakewood, CO 80228

RE:  Qualifying the Roaring Fork Valley Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Project as a “Very Small Start”

Dear Mr. Rosapep,

As you know, the designation of a transportation project as a Small or Very Small Start qualifies that project for expedited review for federal funding.  “FTA has already determined that such projects are cost-effective so no further analysis is required and each project will receive a ‘medium’ rating for cost-effectiveness.”  - Updated Interim Guidance and Instructions for Small Starts, July 20, 2007

A dollar limit is one criterion the Guidance uses to verify that the size of a project makes it appropriate for a less rigorous review, but the more revealing test is proportional:  “The additional operating and maintenance cost to the agency of the proposed Small Starts project is less than 5 percent of the agency’s operating budget…”

The most obvious strategy to circumvent the letter and intent of the rules qualifying a project as a Small or Very Small Start is both anticipated and prohibited by the Guidance:  “Projects may be built in phases or a series of minimum operable segments, but all potential Small Starts projects envisioned for a single corridor will be evaluated together as a single project…All phases of a proposed project in a single corridor must meet the eligibility criteria for a Very Small Start when evaluated as a single project.”  Emphasis added.

The above points, among others, were raised in my undated letter to you (received by your office on March 19, 2009), due to their relevance to the Roaring Fork Valley BRT project. The local BRT project is obviously much too large to qualify for a Small or Very Small Start grant request, and that led to my assumption that some form of exemption had been granted.

In your response of March 23, 2009, you have stated that the FTA “did not consider, apply or grant any exception”, when applying Guidance criteria to the Roaring Fork Transit Authority (RFTA) BRT funding request.

As explanation for the FTA action to accept the BRT project for Very Small Starts treatment, your letter includes the following statement:  “4.   The RFTA BRT project has been evaluated as a single project, in a single corridor; and complies with the requirements noted in the Guidance.  The intent of the FTA guidance is to avoid projects being divided into individual segments, with each segment submitted as a Very Small Starts.  This is not the present case."

The first sentence in your Point 4 directly contradicts itself, a condition which is not remedied by the selective misrepresentation in the second sentence.  The FTA does seek to avoid projects being subdivided into “individual segments” along a corridor for the purpose of subverting the Very Small Starts financing criteria, but the Guidance is equally committed to prohibiting projects from being built in phases to achieve the same evasive purpose.  This is the present case.

In any and every public record available, whether in the form of news accounts, internal RFTA documents, or public presentations, the current RFTA BRT project has indisputably been represented to the public as Phase One of a much larger project.

In addition to violating rules against subdividing projects into qualifying-sized phases, Phase One of the proposed BRT project will by itself utterly obliterate the 5 percent limit on increases in operating and maintenance costs in relation to the “agency’s operating budget”.  Your letter of March 23^rd responds to this overriding disqualifying factor with complete silence.

The FTA cites local financial commitment as a basis for approving a federal grant - while local voters were asked to approve increased financing in order to qualify for that federal grant.  The availability of federal funds strongly suggests some form of oversight, or vetting, or analysis of cost and benefit having been performed, and on which the public can rely.  The spurious assignment of a large and ambitious transportation plan into a program where “project effectiveness will be proven simply by qualifying as a Very Small Starts project” is tantamount to voter fraud.

The federal requirements for Small Starts were specifically crafted to prevent exactly what is happening with the Roaring Fork Valley BRT project, and this letter has maintained the pretense of informing you of this fact solely for the sake of decorum.  I recognize that as a federal employee you are not subject to any consequences for your decision to blatantly disregard safeguards against government waste.  You cannot be fired.  There are no criminal or civil penalties which might enforce accountability.

Regardless, what you have done in this instance is wrong.  You have assisted in misleading the public; committing local taxpayers to many millions of dollars in operating and maintenance expenses for a huge mass transit expansion plan which could not survive the scrutiny of cost-effectiveness or operating efficiency which the public assumes you are responsible for providing.  You have contributed to the pending bankruptcy of your country, and are further eroding public trust in government at all levels.

You have left me with only one possible remaining question:
As a citizen of this country, what action will you take to insure that the Roaring Fork Valley BRT project is removed from the FTA Very Small Starts grant program?

Entry Filed under: Politics, Transportation, Basalt, Snowmass, Carbondale, Glenwood Springs, Aspen, El Jebel, Pitkin County, Rifle, Eagle County, government