FTA has provided funding to a number of PPP fixed guideway projects in the past, including design-build and DBOM contracts. While these have been successful projects, there has been considerable interest in improving FTA's processes to encourage greater private participation in transit projects. To this end, Section 3011(c) of SAFETEA-LU authorized FTA to establish a Pilot Program to demonstrate the advantages and disadvantages of PPPs in up to three new fixed guideway capital projects.
On March 22, 2006, FTA published a notice in the Federal Register soliciting comments and preliminary expressions of interest with respect to the establishment and implementation of the Pilot Program.19 FTA invited comment on, among other things, what changes in law or new financial incentives are appropriate or necessary to promote the participation of private enterprise in the delivery and operation of transit systems.20
This section focuses on those Federal statutory provisions, regulations and processes that transit industry stakeholders have highlighted as tending to impede growth in transit PPPs. Many of these concerns have been addressed by FTA in its January 19, 2007 Notice setting forth the definitive terms of the Pilot Program.21
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19 Federal Transit Administration, Docket No. FTA-2006-23697, Public-Private Partnership Pilot Program, 71 Fed. Reg. 14568, March 22, 2006.
20 Comments may be found at http://dms.dot.gov/search/searchResultsSimple.cfm (search Docket Number 23697).
21 Public Private Partnership Pilot Program, 72 Fed. Reg. 2583, January 19, 2007 (the "Pilot Program Notice").