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Overall Description of Deadline: Section 1203 of MAP-21 requires the Secretary to promulgate a rulemaking within 18 months after the date of enactment.

Statement of Need: The Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) transforms the Federal-aid highway program by establishing new requirements for performance management to ensure the most efficient investment of Federal transportation funds. Performance management refocuses attention on national transportation goals, increases the accountability and transparency of the Federal-aid highway program, and improves project decisionmaking through performance-based planning and programming. This rulemaking is the second of three that would propose the establishment of performance measures for State DOTs and MPOs to use to carry out Federal-aid highway programs and to assess performance in each of the 12 areas mandated by MAP-21. This rulemaking would establish performance measures for State DOTs to use to carry out the National Highway Performance Program (NHPP) and to assess: condition of pavements on the National Highways System (NHS) (excluding the Interstate System), condition of pavements on the Interstate System, and condition of bridges on the NHS. This rulemaking would also propose: the definitions that will be applicable to the new 23 CFR 490; the process to be used by State DOTs and MPOs to establish performance targets that reflect the measures proposed in this rulemaking; a methodology to be used to assess State DOTs compliance with the target achievement provision specified under 23 U.S.C. 119(e)(7); and the process to be followed by State DOTs to report on progress towards the achievement of pavement and bridge condition-related performance targets.

Summary of the Legal Basis: Section 1203 of MAP-21 requires the Secretary of Transportation to establish performance measures and standards through a rulemaking to assess performance in 12 areas.

Alternatives: N/A

Anticipated Costs and Benefits: The FHWA estimated the incremental costs associated with the new requirements proposed in this regulatory action that represent a change to current practices for State DOTs and MPOs. Following this approach, the estimated 10-year undiscounted incremental costs to comply with this rule are $196.4 million. The FHWA could not directly quantify the expected benefits due to data limitations and the amorphous nature of the benefits from the proposed rule. Therefore, in order to evaluate the benefits, FHWA used a break-even analysis as the primary approach to quantify benefits. For both pavements and bridges, FHWA focused its break-even analysis on Vehicle Operating Costs (VOC) savings. The FHWA estimated the number of road miles of deficient pavement that would have to be improved and the number of posted bridges that would have to be avoided in order for the benefits of the rule to justify the costs. The results of the break-even analysis quantified the dollar value of the benefits that the proposed rule must generate to outweigh the threshold value, the estimated cost of the proposed rule, which is $196.4 million in undiscounted dollars. The FHWA believes that the proposed rule would surpass this threshold and, as a result, the benefits of the rule would outweigh the costs.

Risks: N/A