RIPTA (Rhode Island Public Transit Authority) - Comments

Thank you for the opportunity to comment. RIPTA writes to concur with comments made by APTA. In addition, we ask that FTA guard against a situation we found ourselves in last year during the distribution of relief funds for Hurricane Sandy. The rules for that program stated that reimbursements for capital items would only be made if the repair work were already under contract. This may have been done to ensure that only truly necessary repairs be made with the funds. We ask FTA to consider that an agency may take temporary measures to ensure that a facility can operate, while taking more time to put together funds for the design and construction needed to fully repair the structure. This was our situation and it rendered our major project ineligible. We think that this project would otherwise have met the intention of the relief funds. It is not clear to us if the proposed rule has this provision, but we ask that you consider it going forward. Thank you for the opportunity to comment.