The new FTA Rules are similar to the Federal Highway Administration procedures

The Federal Transit Authority has issued its “’Private Investment Project Procedures, (PIPP), designed, as John Smolen explains in an article NOSSAMAN’s INFRA INSIGHT BLOG, “to promote flexibility, funding, innovation, efficiencies and timely implementation” of public, private partnerships (P3s) in its projects.

The FTA’s goal is to promote P3s and the use of private investments in it projects by making it less burdensome for private contractors and investment groups to comply with rules that allow them to participate in these projects.

The Secretary of Transportation instructed the FTA to develop rules that reduce “impediments” to the use of P3s and protect the public’s (i.e. the government’s) financial interests.

“FTA elected a strategy to set out special procedures outlined in the PIPP by which project sponsors may petition for modification to some federal, non-statutory requirements that pose the impediments described just above, not unlike the Federal Highway Administration’s strategy via SEP-15 authority.”

Mr. Smolen describes this approach as a “flexible strategy that lends itself to project-specific sensitivity.” Communication between all parties involved in a project that begins in the planning phase and continues until the project is complete is an essential element of this process.

The private participants must demonstrate “’evidence of committed financing,’ including private sector investment.”

If the new rules work as anticipated, it will require the FTA to interact with private investors, including contractors, to achieve mutually beneficial goals and, hopefully, reduce some, if not all, of the adversarial posturing that has traditionally defined government projects.

If this occurs, everyone benefits.

Source—

New Federal Transit Administration Rule Seeks to Remove Barriers to P3s, John Smolen, NOSSAMAN’S INFRA INSIGHT BLOG, May 31, 2018