Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed five states' experiences in participating in the Federal Highway Administration's (FHwA) Combined Road Plan Demonstration Program, focusing on: (1) how states benefited from the plan's funding flexibility; (2) the plan's administrative advantages; and (3) how states' administration of the Federal-Aid Highway Program compared with federal program administration.
GAO found that: (1) the ability to use pooled funds enabled three states to target funds toward higher-priority highway and bridge needs, but states would like the program expanded to include funds from other highway programs; (2) the demonstration gave states the latitude to determine where and how they would spend selected federal funds, but certain legislative restrictions remained tied to the pooled funds; (3) Congress enacted spending requirements to ensure a minimum amount of state funding to certain systems or areas, and state officials believed that having to comply with those limitations inhibited their ability to target pooled funds to their priority needs; (4) states also benefited by saving time and paperwork because of streamlined processes for approving, implementing, and completing federal aid projects; (5) states established a review process for exception requests that met FHwA approval, but since design exception approvals relied heavily on judgment, the impact of states' safety activities depended upon a qualitative assessment of actual state decisions; and (6) FHwA officials believed that there was little safety risk in having the states perform final inspections, but believed states needed to strengthen their final inspection process to prevent negative safety impacts.
