US transportation officials remove rules for 'nationally significant' projects

The US Federal Highway Administration has removed its 2008 rules for evaluating and rating "Projects of National and Regional Significance." This means there is no longer a specific federal process for prioritizing large, complex transportation projects.

For 16 years, there was a specific federal process to identify and prioritize major transportation projects that crossed state lines or had a big economic impact. This process is now gone. Without these specific rules, it becomes harder to coordinate and fund large-scale infrastructure projects that don't fit neatly into existing state or local programs.