Cost-Effectiveness

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

TOW notes that Minnesota’s James Oberstar is pushing changes to the Federal Transportation Administration’s guidelines for cost-effectiveness so that they take into account more factors, like the potential for development around the route. The FTA thinks BRT is the solution for everything, but this relatively obscure bureaucratic change could make it much easier to get federal funding for light rail instead.

I love the way minor changes like this in the large organism that is government can have such large ramifications. It’s very similar to the way WSDOT redefined capacity last year, opening up the possibility of a surface-transit replacement for the viaduct.