23 U.S.C. § 167 — National highway freight program

(a) In General. (1) Policy: it's U.S. policy to improve the National Highway Freight Network so America can compete globally and reach the goals in subsection (b). (2) Establishment: the Federal Highway Administrator must create a national highway freight program to make freight move more efficiently on that Network. (b) Goals. The program aims to: (1) invest in infrastructure and operations that strengthen the Network's contribution to U.S. economic competitiveness, cut congestion and bottlenecks, lower freight transportation costs, improve year-round reliability, and boost productivity (especially for high-value domestic industries); (2) improve the safety, security, efficiency, and resilience of freight transport in rural and urban areas; (3) keep the Network in good repair; (4) use innovation and technology to make the Network safer, more efficient, and more reliable; (5) improve the Network's overall efficiency and productivity; (6) give states more flexibility to plan across state lines and form multi-state groups to link freight corridors; and (7) reduce the environmental impact of moving freight on the Network. (c) Establishment of National Highway Freight Network. (1) The Administrator must build a National Highway Freight Network to direct federal money and policy toward better freight performance. (2) The Network has four parts: the primary highway freight system (defined in (d)); critical rural freight corridors (defined in (e)); critical urban freight corridors (defined in (f)); and the parts of the Interstate System not already in the primary system. (d) Designation and Redesignation of the Primary Highway Freight System. (1) The system initially is the same 41,518-mile network identified under the prior version of this law, as it existed before the FAST Act. (2) Starting 5 years after the FAST Act, and every 5 years after that, the Administrator must redesignate the system using the factors in (E). Each redesignation can grow the system by no more than 3% of its total mileage. As much as possible, the Administrator must use measurable data — like where goods start, where they end up, and how they connect into supply chains — to judge which roads matter. State freight advisory committees can suggest extra miles for consideration. In deciding, the Administrator must weigh: changes in where freight starts and ends; changes in truck traffic share on major roads; changes in the location of key facilities; land and water ports of entry; access to energy production areas; access to other freight hubs (rail, air, water, pipelines); total freight tonnage and value moved by highway; major freight bottlenecks; the importance of goods movement on major roads, including in global and domestic supply chains; new and emerging freight corridors; and how well the network connects. (e) Critical Rural Freight Corridors. (1) A state may designate a public road outside an urbanized area as a critical rural freight corridor if it: is a rural principal arterial road where trucks make up at least 25% of daily traffic; provides access to energy production areas; connects to a facility handling more than 50,000 shipping containers or 500,000 tons of bulk goods a year; provides access to a grain elevator, farm facility, mine, forestry site, or intermodal facility; connects to an international port of entry; provides access to major air, rail, water, or other freight facilities; or is otherwise, in the state's judgment, vital to moving freight important to its economy. (2) A state can designate at most 300 miles of highway or 20% of its primary system mileage as rural corridors, whichever is larger. (3) A state that's more rural than the national average (by 2010 census population density) can instead designate up to 600 miles or 25% of its primary system mileage, whichever is larger. (f) Critical Urban Freight Corridors. (1) In an urbanized area of 500,000+ people, the area's metropolitan planning organization (consulting the state) may designate a public road as a critical urban freight corridor. (2) In a smaller urbanized area, the state (consulting the planning organization) does the designating instead. (3) Either way, the road must be in an urbanized area and must: connect an intermodal facility to the primary highway freight system, the Interstate System, or another intermodal facility; sit along a primary-system route and offer an alternate route important for freight; serve a major freight generator, logistics hub, or industrial/warehouse area; or otherwise matter to regional freight movement, as the planning organization or state decides. (4) Each state can designate at most 150 miles of highway or 10% of its primary system mileage as urban corridors, whichever is larger. (g) Designation and Certification. (1) States and metropolitan planning organizations can designate corridors under (e) and (f) and send them to the Administrator anytime. (2) Whoever designates a corridor must certify to the Administrator that it meets the relevant requirements. (h) Use of Apportioned Funds. (1) States must spend their section 104(b)(5) highway funds on improving freight movement on the Network. (2) The Administrator calculates, for each state, its share of the primary system's total mileage. (3) States with 2% or more of that mileage can spend their funds on the primary system, rural corridors, and urban corridors; states with less than 2% can spend their funds on any part of the Network. (4) Starting 2 years after the FAST Act, a state can't spend these funds unless it has a freight plan (though the multimodal part of that plan can still be incomplete). (5) Generally, a project must help move freight efficiently on the Network and be listed in the state's freight investment plan to qualify for funding — except that each year a state may spend up to 30% of its section 104(b)(5) money on freight intermodal or freight rail projects, including work at rail or water freight facilities, infrastructure connecting to those facilities, certain lock-and-dam modernization, or marine highway projects — but only if those last two categories are shown to connect to the highway Network and likely cut roadside pollution. Eligible uses of the funds include: early-stage planning and design work; construction, land purchases, and system-improving operational work; technology to improve freight flow; efforts and mitigation to reduce environmental impact; railway-highway grade separations; interchange and ramp improvements; truck-only, climbing, and runaway-truck lanes; adding or widening shoulders; truck parking facilities; real-time traffic and parking information systems; vehicle screening and weigh-in-motion technology; smart traffic signals; work-zone management systems; ramp metering; border-security technology for trucks; smart systems inside intermodal facilities; extra capacity for bottlenecks; separating passenger cars from trucks; making critical highway infrastructure (including for energy security) more resilient; other highway or bridge projects that improve freight flow; and other surface transportation projects tied to the freight facilities described above. (6) States may also use these funds for diesel retrofits or alternative-fuel projects for heavy trucks, and for the costs of freight-related data analysis, updating performance targets, and reporting to the Administrator. (7) Spending and programming under this section must follow the general planning rules in sections 134 and 135. (i) State Performance Targets. If a state hasn't met, or made real progress toward, its freight performance targets within 2 years of those targets being set, its next progress report must explain: the state's key freight trends, needs, and issues; the freight policies and strategies guiding its investments; an inventory of its freight bottlenecks and how it's using program funds to fix them; and what the state will do to meet its targets. (j) Intelligent Freight Transportation System. (1) This term means innovative or smart transportation systems, infrastructure, or facilities — including elevated freight facilities near or within federal-aid highways, or connecting land border crossings to those highways — or communication and information systems that make freight movement on federal-aid highways more efficient, secure, or safe, including dedicated smart freight lanes. (2) The Administrator must decide whether operating standards are needed for these systems. (k) Treatment of Freight Projects. Any freight project carried out under this section is treated as if it were on a federal-aid highway, regardless of any other law.