Member States’ FAST Act–Compliant Freight Planning Activities

In mid-2017, at the request of its members, the Eastern Transportation Coalition staff conducted extensive guided interviews with 17 Coalition member Departments of Transportation (DOTs) from 16 states and Washington, DC, to assess the status of their freight planning activities in response to the requirements of the 2015 Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act). The first FAST Act–compliant state freight plans were due by December 4, 2017, and must be updated at least every five years. Because FAST Act provisions include, for the first time, discretionary and formula grant programs that will benefit freight-related projects, supporting member agencies as they create FAST Act–compliant state freight plans is a high priority for the Coalition. The objective of the interviews was to gather information regarding members’ activities as they prepared their freight plans. The following topics were examined:

• Approaches to the development of FAST Act–compliant state freight plans
• Including use of and need for freight data to identify cost-saving approaches, critical corridors, and bottlenecks
• Innovative strategies for meeting federal requirements
• Lessons learned
• Additional areas of support the Coalition can provide

The full report can be found here.

This report is meant to complement Freight Planning efforts at the state and federal level  More information on freight planning efforts,  guidance and best practices, as well as information on current status of state FAST ACT-compliant Freight Plans may be found on Federal Highway Administration/Office of Freight Management website at: https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/freight_analysis/state_info/index.htm