The transportation planning process (i.e., long-range transportation planning by the metropolitan planning organization) may consider a wide variety of options for solving a transportation problem. Linking the planning and NEPA processes is an important approach to transportation decisionmaking that considers mobility, land use, environmental, and economic goals in the planning stage and carries them through project development, design, and construction.  The metropolitan planning process may produce adequate documentation to support planning decision on the project’s purpose and need, the specific transit mode, a general alignment, the cumulative impacts of planned projects, and mitigation banking that may can be incorporated by reference into the NEPA document. The scoping process should reveal the planning products expected to be used in the NEPA process.

What is the link between planning and the NEPA process?
When the transportation planning and NEPA processes are not well coordinated, the NEPA process may be forced to develop information that would have been more appropriately developed in the planning process – resulting in duplication of work and delays in transportation improvements. FTA may choose to participate in early scoping during the planning process when a transit agency or metropolitan planning organization (MPO) is performing a planning study of transit options in a large metropolitan travel market. This early participation is particularly effective when the transit agency and FTA expect that planning study to lead immediately into the NEPA process for the proposed project resulting from it.

The following links provide guidance on linking the planning and NEPA processes.

• FHWA Environmental Review Toolkit Planning and Environment Linkages: This website provides information related to strengthening planning and environment linkages including: benefits of a linked approach; implementation tools and agency examples; effective practices and case studies; publications; data and analysis resources to achieve stronger linkages between planning and the environment; and related legislation, regulations, and guidance.
• Appendix A to Part 450—Linking the Transportation Planning and NEPA Processes: This appendix to the FHWA-FTA Statewide and Metropolitan Transportation Planning regulation (23 CFR Part 450) provides guidance on how information, analysis, and products from transportation planning can be incorporated into and relied upon in NEPA documents under existing laws.
• AASHTO Practitioner’s Handbook: Using the Transportation Planning Process to Support the NEPA Process: This handbook is intended to help transportation planners and NEPA practitioners improve the linkages between the planning and NEPA processes, while also complying with recent legislative changes.

How does the New Starts/Small Starts program interface with the NEPA process?
The FTA discretionary New Starts program is the federal government's primary financial resource for supporting new fixed-guideway transit projects. The process for discretionary funding of the New Starts/Small Starts program is described in FTA’s Introduction to New Starts. Federal transit law (49 U.S.C. Chapter 53) further supports a comprehensive planning and project development process that New Starts projects must follow.  The planning process is intended to assist transit agencies and decisionmakers in evaluating alternative strategies for addressing transportation problems in specified corridors and in selecting the most appropriate improvement to advance into engineering, design, and construction. Planning and project development for New Starts projects is a continuum of analytical activities carried out concurrently with the MPO planning and NEPA review processes.

The following links provide additional information about the New Starts/Small Starts program and guidance on how it should interface with the NEPA process.

• New Starts Project Planning & Development: This page provides a program overview, information on New Starts funding recommendations and project evaluation, and New Starts/Small Starts guidance and regulations.
• 2006 Final Guidance on New Starts Policies and Procedures: Guidance document for New Starts policies and procedures, including information about interfaces with the NEPA process.