Interstate System Access

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Highway Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>23 CFR Part 624</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FHWA-2020-0006]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2125-AF89</RIN> <SUBJECT>Interstate System Access</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This final rule amends FHWA regulations governing changes in access to the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways (Interstate System). As a condition of funding for Federal-aid highway projects, Federal law prohibits State departments of transportation (State DOT) from adding any point of access to or from the Interstate System without the approval of the Secretary of Transportation. This final rule codifies and clarifies existing policies and practices regarding State DOT requests for, and FHWA approval of, changes in access to the Interstate System. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective December 9, 2024. Use of this new regulation is required for all State DOT requests for, and FHWA approval of, changes in access to the Interstate System documented in an Interstate Access Justification Report dated after December 9, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Mr. Clayton Wellman, Office of Preconstruction, Construction and Pavements (HICP-10), (202) 366-4658, or via email at <E T="03">Clayton.Wellman@dot.gov,</E> or Mr. Lev Gabrilovich, Office of the Chief Counsel (HCC-30), (202) 366-3813, or via email at <E T="03">Lev.Gabrilovich@dot.gov.</E> Office hours are from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., e.t., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Electronic Access and Filing</HD> This document, as well as the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) and all comments received, may be viewed online through the Federal eRulemaking portal at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> using the docket number listed above. Electronic retrieval help and guidelines are also available at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> An electronic copy of this document may also be downloaded from the Office of the Federal Register's website at <E T="03">www.FederalRegister.gov</E> and the U.S. Government Publishing Office's website at <E T="03">www.GovInfo.gov.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background and Legal Authority</HD> It is in the national interest to preserve and enhance the Interstate System to meet the needs of the 21st century by ensuring that it provides the highest level of service in terms of safety and mobility. Full control of access along the Interstate mainline and ramps, along with control of access on the crossroad at interchanges, is critical to such service. Under 23 U.S.C. 111 (section 111), all agreements between the Secretary and State DOTs for the construction of projects on the Interstate System shall provide that the State will not add any points of access to, or exit from, the project in addition to those approved by the Secretary in the plans for such project, without the prior approval of the Secretary. Any change to an access point can potentially add or remove access from the Interstate System. Therefore, FHWA historically has interpreted the addition of an access point to include the addition of a new, or modification of an existing, interchange or access point along the Interstate System. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See, e.g.,</E> 2017 Interstate Access Policy, dated May 22, 2017 ( <E T="03">https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/programadmin/fraccess.cfm</E> ). </FTNT> The Secretary has delegated authority to administer section 111 to the Federal Highway Administrator pursuant to 49 CFR 1.85(a)(1). Section 111(e) allows FHWA to delegate to a State DOT authority to approve Interstate Access Justification Reports (IAJR) pertaining to certain changes in access to the Interstate System. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Statement of the Problem and Regulatory History</HD> The FHWA published a NPRM on September 19, 2023 (88 FR 64388), seeking public comment on proposed amendments to its regulations to incorporate provisions governing changes in access to the Interstate System at new 23 CFR part 624. The FHWA received 57 comments submitted to the docket from 19 commenters representing State DOTs, individuals, and planning organizations. After carefully considering the comments received in response to the NPRM, FHWA is promulgating final regulations with changes from the proposed regulatory text. The FHWA did not receive comments on the new information collection associated with this proposal, specifically the submittal of two reports that State DOTs have submitted to FHWA for years under the existing policy: the IAJR and the Programmatic Agreement (PA) annual report. To facilitate implementation of the statutory requirements regarding changes in access to the federally-funded Interstate System, FHWA recognizes a need to codify and clarify current practices, as set forth in FHWA policy, in regulations. When considering a request for a change in access to the Interstate System, FHWA examines the safety, operations, and engineering (SO&E) aspects of the requested change in access. Historically, FHWA has done this by relying on the information provided in an IAJR submitted by the State DOT. The IAJR contains the project layouts, technical analyses, and other information supporting the change in access request. To date, FHWA has determined whether to approve the request based on the factors listed in FHWA's policy on Access to the Interstate System (Policy). The FHWA initially developed and published the Policy in October 1990 (55 FR 42670) due to numerous requests by States for additional clarity regarding the justification and documentation necessary to substantiate proposed changes in access to the Interstate System. The FHWA issued subsequent revisions in February 1998, August 2009, and May 2017. The February 11, 1998, revision (63 FR 7045) reflected the planning requirements of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991 (Pub. L. 102-240) as implemented in 23 CFR part 450, to clarify coordination between the access request and environmental processes, and to update language. The FHWA issued the 2009 Interstate Access Policy (2009 Policy), published August 27, 2009 (74 FR 43743), to reflect the direction provided in Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) (Pub. L. 109-59) to clarify the operational and safety analysis and assessment of impacts that provides the basis for proposed changes in access to the Interstate System. The 2009 Policy also updated language to reference Federal laws, regulations, and FHWA policies. Finally, FHWA issued the 2017 Interstate Access Policy (2017 Policy), dated May 22, 2017 ( <E T="03">www.fhwa.dot.gov/programadmin/fraccess.cfm</E> ), to reduce duplication with other project reviews. The 2017 Policy focused on the technical feasibility of any change in access in support of FHWA's determination of safety, operational, and engineering acceptability without including additional documentation related to other activities in the project development ( <E T="03">i.e.</E> planning, preliminary design, environmental analysis, final design, right-of-way acquisition, and construction) process. Codifying and clarifying current practices under the 2017 Policy in regulation facilitates implementation of the statutory requirements regarding changes in access to the Interstate System. This process is separate from the de-designation of Interstate segments that are processed through FHWA's Office of Planning, Environment, and Realty, and this rulemaking does not impact the separate de-designation process. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Interstate System Access Regulation at 23 CFR Part 624</HD> This rule establishes requirements for the justification and documentation necessary for a State DOT to substantiate proposed changes in access to the Interstate System. These requirements are consistent with the existing policies and practices described above. It facilitates decisionmaking regarding proposed changes in access to the Interstate System in a manner that considers SO&E. Consistent with 23 U.S.C. 109(a) and (b) and 23 U.S.C. 111, new or modified points of access to the Interstate System must be approved by FHWA if a Federal-aid project agreement has ever been executed on the segment of Interstate highway impacted by the proposal. To facilitate these approvals, such new or modified points of access must be developed in accordance with the requirements of this regulation. In addition, new or modified points of access must comply with the requirements in 23 CFR part 625, Design Standards for Highways. As discussed in § 624.8, change in access requests will not be accepted from other parties besides a State DOT. Thus, for projects that do not include State DOT involvement, such as discretionary grants awarded directly to local government entities, any change in access requests must come from the appropriate State DOT. The FHWA's decision to approve new or revised access points to the Interstate System must be supported by information justifying and documenting the proposed change in access. Therefore, the decision to approve a request is dependent on the IAJR demonstrating that the proposed change in access will not result in a significant adverse impact on the Interstate System traffic operations or the safety in the project's area of influence. In addition, the proposed access must connect to a public road, provide for all traffic movements, be designed to meet or exceed current standards, and demonstrate that the change in access can be clearly an ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 77k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━