Background

Title 49, section 5301 et seq., of the United States Code establishes a statutory framework for federal assistance in developing improved mass transportation equipment, facilities, techniques, and methods with the cooperation of public and private mass transportation companies. This statutory framework provides assistance to state and local governments in financing local urban mass transportation systems operated by public or private mass transportation companies. (49 U.S.C. § 5301 (f)(3).) Federal financial assistance is administered by the DOT through either the Federal Railroad Administration or the FTA, both of which are agencies within DOT.

In addition to the delegation of federal regulatory authority embodied in these statutes, section 778 of the Code provides a mandate for the Commission to adopt rules and regulations relating to safety appliances and procedures for rail transit services operated at grade and in vehicular traffic, including provisions on grade crossing protection devices, headways, and maximum operating speeds. The Commission has carried out this mandate by including provisions on this subject in GO 164.

Title 49, section 5330, subdivision (b), of the United States Code authorizes the Administrator of the FTA to withhold up to five percent of FTA-administered financial assistance appropriated in a given fiscal year for state use for fixed guideway mass transportation systems, if the state failed in the previous fiscal year to meet federal requirements for establishing and carrying out a safety program plan for each system. Implementing regulations setting forth the specific safety program requirements are found in 49 CFR Part 659.

The federal statutory framework requires the state to establish a safety program, and to designate a state authority as having the responsibility to review, approve, and monitor the execution of each system's safety plan; investigate hazardous conditions and accidents on systems; and require corrective action to correct or eliminate those conditions. (49 U.S.C. §5330(c).) California has enacted a safety program implementing these requirements, and has designated this Commission to have oversight responsibility, in response to this federal directive.

On April 29, 2005, the FTA revised 49 CFR Part 659. Certain provisions in the new federal rule make it necessary for the Commission to revise GO 164-C to conform to the revised requirements. Accordingly, on October 13, 2006, the Commission issued Order Instituting Rulemaking 06-10-004 (the OIR), and sought comments on the revision of GO 164-C, the current version of the rule. A draft of the proposed revision of GO 164-C (which will be GO 164-D) was appended to the OIR. This decision adopts the final rule, GO 164-D, and closes the OIR.