23 U.S.C. § 101 Definitions and Declaration of Policy

• Library: United States Statutes
• Edition: 2023
• Currency: Current through P.L. 118-34 (published on www.congress.gov on 12/26/2023), except for [P. L. 118-31]
• Year: 2023
• Citation: 23 U.S.C. § 101

(a) DEFINITIONS.-In this title, the following definitions apply:

(1) APPORTIONMENT.-The term "apportionment" includes unexpended apportionments made under prior authorization laws.

(2) ASSET MANAGEMENT.-The term "asset management" means a strategic and systematic process of operating, maintaining, and improving physical assets, with a focus on both engineering and economic analysis based upon quality information, to identify a structured sequence of maintenance, preservation, repair, rehabilitation, and replacement actions that will achieve and sustain a desired state of good repair over the lifecycle of the assets at minimum practicable cost.

(3) CARPOOL PROJECT.-The term "carpool project" means any project to encourage the use of carpools and vanpools, including provision of carpooling opportunities to the elderly and individuals with disabilities, systems for locating potential riders and informing them of carpool opportunities, acquiring vehicles for carpool use, designating existing highway lanes as preferential carpool highway lanes, providing related traffic control devices, designating existing facilities for use for preferential parking for carpools, and real-time ridesharing projects, such as projects where drivers, using an electronic transfer of funds, recover costs directly associated with the trip provided through the use of location technology to quantify those direct costs, subject to the condition that the cost recovered does not exceed the cost of the trip provided.

(4) CONSTRUCTION.-The term "construction" means the supervising, inspecting, actual building, and incurrence of all costs incidental to the construction or reconstruction of a highway or any project eligible for assistance under this title, including bond costs and other costs relating to the issuance in accordance with section 122 of bonds or other debt financing instruments and costs incurred by the State in performing Federal-aid project related audits that directly benefit the Federal-aid highway program. Such term includes-

(A) preliminary engineering, engineering, and design-related services directly relating to the construction of a highway project, including engineering, design, project development and management, construction project management and inspection, surveying, assessing resilience, mapping (including the establishment of temporary and permanent geodetic control in accordance with specifications of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), and architectural-related services;

(B) reconstruction, resurfacing, restoration, rehabilitation, and preservation;

(C) acquisition of rights-of-way;

(D) relocation assistance, acquisition of replacement housing sites, and acquisition and rehabilitation, relocation, and construction of replacement housing;

(E) elimination of hazards of railway-highway grade crossings;

(F) elimination of roadside hazards;

(G) improvements that directly facilitate and control traffic flow, such as grade separation of intersections, widening of lanes, channelization of traffic, traffic control systems, and passenger loading and unloading areas;

(H) improvements that reduce the number of wildlife-vehicle collisions, such as wildlife crossing structures; and

(I) capital improvements that directly facilitate an effective vehicle weight enforcement program, such as scales (fixed and portable), scale pits, scale installation, and scale houses.

(5) COUNTY.-The term "county" includes corresponding units of government under any other name in States that do not have county organizations and, in those States in which the county government does not have jurisdiction over highways, any local government unit vested with jurisdiction over local highways.

(6) FEDERAL-AID HIGHWAY.-The term "Federal-aid highway" means a public highway eligible for assistance under this chapter other than a highway functionally classified as a local road or rural minor collector.

(7) FEDERAL LANDS ACCESS TRANSPORTATION FACILITY.-The term "Federal Lands access transportation facility" means a public highway, road, bridge, trail, or transit system that is located on, is adjacent to, or provides access to Federal lands for which title or maintenance responsibility is vested in a State, county, town, township, tribal, municipal, or local government.

(8) FEDERAL LANDS TRANSPORTATION FACILITY.-The term "Federal lands transportation facility" means a public highway, road, bridge, trail, or transit system that is located on, is adjacent to, or provides access to Federal lands for which title and maintenance responsibility is vested in the Federal Government, and that appears on the national Federal lands transportation facility inventory described in section 203(c).

(9) FOREST DEVELOPMENT ROADS AND TRAILS.-The term "forest development roads and trails" means forest roads and trails under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service.

(10) FOREST ROAD OR TRAIL.-The term "forest road or trail" means a road or trail wholly or partly within, or adjacent to, and serving the National Forest System that is necessary for the protection, administration, and utilization of the National Forest System and the use and development of its resources.

(11) HIGHWAY.-The term "highway" includes-

(A) a road, street, and parkway;

(B) a right-of-way, bridge, railroad-highway crossing, tunnel, drainage structure including public roads on dams, sign, guardrail, and protective structure, in connection with a highway; and

(C) a portion of any interstate or international bridge or tunnel and the approaches thereto, the cost of which is assumed by a State transportation department, including such facilities as may be required by the United States Customs and Immigration Services in connection with the operation of an international bridge or tunnel.

(12) INTERSTATE SYSTEM.-The term "Interstate System" means the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways described in section 103(c).

(13) MAINTENANCE.-The term "maintenance" means the preservation of the entire highway, including surface, shoulders, roadsides, structures, and such traffic-control devices as are necessary for safe and efficient utilization of the highway.

(14) MAINTENANCE AREA.-The term "maintenance area" means an area that was designated as an air quality nonattainment area, but was later redesignated by the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency as an air quality attainment area, under section 107(d) of the Clean Air Act ( 42 U.S.C. 7407(d) ).

(15) NATIONAL HIGHWAY FREIGHT NETWORK.-The term "National Highway Freight Network" means the National Highway Freight Network established under section 167.

(16) NATIONAL HIGHWAY SYSTEM.-The term "National Highway System" means the Federal-aid highway system described in section 103(b).

(17) NATURAL INFRASTRUCTURE.-The term "natural infrastructure" means infrastructure that uses, restores, or emulates natural ecological processes and-

(A) is created through the action of natural physical, geological, biological, and chemical processes over time;

(B) is created by human design, engineering, and construction to emulate or act in concert with natural processes; or

(C) involves the use of plants, soils, and other natural features, including through the creation, restoration, or preservation of vegetated areas using materials appropriate to the region to manage stormwater and runoff, to attenuate flooding and storm surges, and for other related purposes.

(18) OPERATING COSTS FOR TRAFFIC MONITORING, MANAGEMENT, AND CONTROL.-The term "operating costs for traffic monitoring, management, and control" includes labor costs, administrative costs, costs of utilities and rent, and other costs associated with the continuous operation of traffic control, such as integrated traffic control systems, incident management programs, and traffic control centers.

(19) OPERATIONAL IMPROVEMENT.-The term "operational improvement"-

(A) means (i) a capital improvement for installation of traffic surveillance and control equipment, computerized signal systems, motorist information systems, integrated traffic control systems, incident management programs, and transportation demand management facilities, strategies, and programs, and (ii) such other capital improvements to public roads as the Secretary may designate, by regulation; and

(B) does not include resurfacing, restoring, or rehabilitating improvements, construction of additional lanes, interchanges, and grade separations, and construction of a new facility on a new location.

(20) PROJECT.-The term "project" means any undertaking eligible for assistance under this title.

(21) PROJECT AGREEMENT.-The term "project agreement" means the formal instrument to be executed by the Secretary and the recipient as required by section 106.

(22) PUBLIC AUTHORITY.-The term "public authority" means a Federal, State, county, town, or township, Indian tribe, municipal or other local government or instrumentality with authority to finance, build, operate, or maintain toll or toll-free facilities.

(23) PUBLIC ROAD.-The term "public road" means any road or street under the jurisdiction of and maintained by a public authority and open to public travel.

(24) RESILIENCE.-The term "resilience", with respect to a project, means a project with the ability to anticipate, prepare for, or adapt to conditions or withstand, respond to, or recover rapidly from disruptions, including the ability-

(A)

(i) to resist hazards or withstand impacts from weather events and natural disasters; or

(ii) to reduce the magnitude or duration of impacts of a disruptive weather event or natural disaster on a project; and

(B) to have the absorptive capacity, adaptive capacity, and recoverability to decrease project vulnerability to weather events or other natural disasters.

(25) RURAL AREAS.-The term "rural areas" means all areas of a State not included in urban areas.

(26) SAFETY IMPROVEMENT PROJECT.-The term "safety improvement project" means a strategy, activity, or project on a public road that is consistent with the State strategic highway safety plan and corrects or improves a roadway feature that constitutes a hazard to road users or addresses a highway safety problem.