[Federal Register Volume 90, Number 220 (Tuesday, November 18, 2025)]
[Notices]
[Pages 51809-51810]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2025-20086]
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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Federal Transit Administration
[Docket No. FTA-2025-0134]
Proposed Rescission of the National Transit Database Weekly
Reference Reporting Requirement
AGENCY: Federal Transit Administration (FTA), U.S. Department of
Transportation (DOT).
ACTION: Notice, request for comments.
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SUMMARY: This notice provides information on the proposed rescission of
the National Transit Database's (NTD) Weekly Reference (WE-20)
reporting requirement. After careful evaluation, FTA determined the WE-
20 reporting requirement no longer offers sufficient
[[Page 51810]]
value relative to the administrative burden on transit agencies and
FTA. Consistent with the Administration's focus on reducing
regulations, FTA proposes rescinding the WE-20 reporting requirement.
DATES: Comments should be filed by December 2, 2025.
ADDRESSES: You may send comments, identified by docket number FTA-2025-
0134, by any of the following methods:
Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to https://www.regulations.gov and follow the online instructions for submitting
comments.
Mail: Send comments to Docket Management Facility; U.S.
Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building
Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001.
Hand Delivery or Courier: West Building Ground Floor, Room
W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Ave. SE, between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. ET,
Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays.
Fax: Fax comments to Docket Management Facility, U.S.
Department of Transportation, at (202) 493-2251.
Instructions: You must include the agency name (Federal Transit
Administration) and Docket Number (FTA-2025-0134) for this notice, at
the beginning of your comments. If sent by mail, submit two copies of
your comments.
Electronic Access and Filing: This document and all comments
received may be viewed online through the Federal eRulemaking portal at
https://www.regulations.gov or at the street address listed above.
Electronic submission, retrieval help, and guidelines are available on
the Federal eRulemaking portal website. The website is available 24
hours each day, 365 days a year. Please follow the instructions. An
electronic copy of this document may also be downloaded from the Office
of the Federal Register's home page at https://www.federalregister.gov.
Privacy Act: Except as provided below, all comments received into
the docket will be made public in their entirety. The comments will be
searchable by the name of the individual submitting the comment (or
signing the comment, if submitted on behalf of an association,
business, labor union, etc.) You should not include information in your
comment you do not want to be made public. You may review DOT's
complete Privacy Act Statement in the Federal Register published on
April 11, 2000 (65 FR 19477-78) or at https://www.transportation.gov/privacy.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For program questions, Chelsea
Champlin, National Transit Database Program Manager, FTA Office of
Budget and Policy, 202-366-4050, or [email protected]. For legal
questions, Alexander Lipow, Attorney-Advisor, 202-366-4011, or
[email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Background
The NTD was established by Congress to be the Nation's primary
source for information and statistics on the transit systems of the
United States. Recipients and beneficiaries of FTA grants under either
the Urbanized Area Formula Program (49 U.S.C. 5307) or Rural Area
Formula Program (49 U.S.C. 5311) are required by law to report data to
the NTD. Recipients generally report data on an annual or monthly
basis.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, FTA found it did not have sufficient
and timely data on transit ridership or transit service levels to
inform decision-makers at the Federal, State, and local levels during
the rapidly changing crisis situation. To better understand changes in
the transit industry on a timely basis during the tumultuous time, FTA
went through the notice and comment process (Docket number FTA-2022-
0018) pursuant to 49 U.S.C. 5334(k) to, among other things, enable FTA
to collect additional data from a sample set of modal reports from
across the universe of full, reduced, tribal, and rural reporters on a
weekly reference WE-20 Form. FTA finalized the WE-20 reporting
requirements in March 2023 (88 FR 13497).
The goal of the sample data collection (received from approximately
400 FTA recipients) was to obtain a representative nationwide snapshot
of transit ridership and transit service levels. The sampling
methodology uses a stratified random sampling based on region, mode,
and other factors. FTA then made sampling adjustments as needed based
on unavailable modes, recipients without weekly data access, or other
factors.
Although the WE-20 reporting requirement provided important data as
the country recovered from the pandemic, it is not required by statute,
and after two years of experience with this data collection, FTA has
now determined the WE-20 reporting requirement no longer offers
sufficient value relative to the administrative burden on transit
agencies and is inconsistent with this Administration's deregulatory
priorities.
Proposed Recission of the WE-20 Reporting Requirement
In consideration of the foregoing, and consistent with the
Administration's focus on reducing regulatory burdens, FTA proposes to
rescind the WE-20 reporting requirement. The requirement is not
mandated by statute and no longer offers sufficient value relative to
the administrative burden on transit agencies. FTA welcomes public
comments on the proposed recission.
Marcus J. Molinaro,
Administrator.
[FR Doc. 2025-20086 Filed 11-17-25; 8:45 am]
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