FHWA has extended the deadline for FY2011 TIFIA Letters of Interest (LOI) to March 1, 2011. The previous Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA), issued on January 19, had allowed less than a month for interested applicants to prepare and submit LOIs.
The January 25 revised NOFA included a new phrase addressing the role of tolling and pricing programs in enhancing environmental sustainability. Under the revised selection criteria, applicants can demonstrate that their projects help preserve and protect the environment through the use of tolling or pricing structures to reduce or manage high levels of congestion on highway facilities and encourage the use of alternative transportation options.
This new tweak to the TIFIA selection criteria may indicate the Administration’s acceptance of pricing as a gateway to greener highways. FHWA has found that managed lanes, which set tolls according to traffic demand, provide environmental benefits: By reducing the number of vehicles traveling on the road and by smoothing traffic flow and maintaining freeway speeds, managed lanes help to reduce air pollution and may also contribute to a decrease in greenhouse-gas emissions.
There is still no indication of how much funding will be available for TIFIA in FY2011, so this may not be the last revision to the NOFA. FHWA also intends revise/replace the August 2010 template, and will likely update the template language on environmental sustainability.
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