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ExpectMore.govExpectMore.gov home pageEXPECT FEDERAL PROGRAMS TO PERFORM WELL, AND BETTER EVERY YEAR.
 
Program Assessment

Program

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Federal Transit Administration New Starts

The purpose of New Starts is to provide financial support for locally planned and operated public transit. Federal support is in the form of competitive, discretionary capital investment grants in local fixed guideway transit projects including commuter rail, light rail, heavy rail, bus rapid transit, trolleys and ferries.

Rating

What This Rating Means

PERFORMING
Moderately Effective

In general, a program rated Moderately Effective has set ambitious goals and is well-managed. Moderately Effective programs likely need to improve their efficiency or address other problems in the programs' design or management in order to achieve better results.
  • The program is effectively targeting resources to reach intended beneficiaries. The New Starts evaluation and ratings process results in Congress supporting 91% of proposed New Starts Projects annually. The Federal Transit Administration has consistently responded to recommendations by independent analysts and works with industry groups to further improve program management.
  • The program is moderately effective in achieving its performance goals of project cost containment, mobility improvement and increased ridership. New Starts is using a new risk management program to reduce uncertainty in cost estimates. Funding recipients now submit multi-year performance studies after project completion to enable analysis of project impact on mobility and transit ridership.

Improvement Plan

About Improvement Plans

We are taking the following actions to improve the performance of the program:

  • Using new performance targets to measure performance and better demonstrate the impact of funding on performance.

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