AASHTO, APTA seek delay of performance management reports

Transportation industry groups late last week asked U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to delay by one year the deadline for state and local agencies to begin reporting on their transportation performance management measures.

The chief executives of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) and the Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations made the request in a Dec. 7 letter to Chao.

The reporting period set by the MAP-21 surface transportation funding law is Jan. 1, 2018, through Dec. 31, 2022, but the organizations have asked to push that period back by a year.

The groups' representatives said the delay would give their members time to comply with the federal transportation performance management requirements.

Under MAP-21, Congress required the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) to develop rules requiring state DOTs, transit agencies and metropolitan planning organizations to report on how they manage performance of their transportation assets.

MAP-21 also set a single statutory deadline for the publication of those rules.

"Clearly, the challenges in developing the rules went well beyond the statutory deadlines in MAP-21 and resulted in many different effective dates that went years beyond the original mandates set by Congress and initial dates established by USDOT," the groups wrote in the letter. "In fact, to this day, not all of the new regulations have been finalized by both the Federal Transit Administration and the Federal Highway Administration."

Delaying the deadline would result in a "better alignment of critical reporting dates," they said. A delay also would allow more time for oversight agencies to finalize necessary guidance and develop their reporting infrastructure.