(1) The Executive Director shall specify the format of the listings for projects on the State highway system, mass transit projects, and aeronautics projects.

(2) Project information shall be transmitted to the Commission in a standardized fashion, as specified by the Executive Director. Whenever possible, this transmittal will take advantage of automated data processing capabilities available to the Department and/or the Commission.

(3) Standardized project description forms shall be completed by RTPAs and the Department for all eligible aeronautics projects submitted for inclusion in the adopted STIP. The standardized form to be used in this process shall be developed by the Department and distributed to all RTPAs by the Commission. Failure to complete this form shall be grounds for excluding a project from the adopted STIP.

(1) To assist the Commission in programming the STIP, the Department shall assign priorities for the Interstate and Primary-State cash fund types. For each fund type, a relative priority shall be assigned to the following projects:

(2) Each RTPA shall prepare a separate priority ranking for projects in the following categories: Interstate; Primary and State-only; State Transportation Planning and Development (TP&D) Account; and Aeronautics. The RTPA shall assign a unique ordinal priority to each project within each category, without regard to subprogram category, with these exceptions:

(1) project location identification (e.g., District, county, route, postmile, guideway identification);

(2) written description of location and type of work (Where applicable, the project nickname commonly used by the local population shall be used in a relevant project listing. The nickname will appear ahead of any more detailed or more technical project identifier. The same nickname will be used for adjoining segments, where applicable, even though each segment is identified as a separate project for planning and programming purposes.);

(3) current and escalated costs for highway rights of way, airport land acquisition, and all construction;

(4) escalation rate;

(5) category of funds to be used (FAI, FAU, State, etc.);

(6) subprogram category of work;

(7) fiscal year for proposed funding;

(8) relevant priority ranking for the project.

(1) Minor projects in the State Highway Noise Attenuation, bicycle, and planting programs shall be identified and listed in the PSTIP and RTIPs in the same manner and detail as major projects.

(2) For the following categories, minor projects shall to the extent possible be listed for the initial two years in the PSTIP and RTIPs and may be grouped as defined in Section (4) below for the remaining three years:

(3) A small line-item lump sum for each year may be included to cover other minor projects that may not be identifiable in advance. They may be grouped into single line items by category of fund source, by implementing jurisdiction, by subprogram category (those defined in Section 8119), or may be listed in the same manner and detail as major projects. At a minimum, the following information shall be included for minor State project line-item listings:

(4) A single group listing may be provided for several individual minor projects in these categories if they involve the same work purpose in the same location or corridor (e.g., signalize 10 intersections on Avenue A).

(1) The Executive Director shall issue instructions for submitting information on the changes in a format compatible with the Commission's STIP data base.

(2) For significant changes, all applicable measures of the current situation and proposal (for example, level of service, average daily traffic, safety index, delay index, etc.) shall be provided to the Commission.

(3) The Department shall provide technical assistance, to the extent possible within existing resources, to each RTPA providing information on changes to the adopted STIP, at the request of the Executive Director of the Commission.

(4) For significant changes to the adopted STIP (either new projects or major changes in existing projects), the recommending agency shall provide an appropriately scaled map (each no larger than 8 ½ ″ x 11″), which indicates the project's location in the State, its location and relationship to the subregional/local street and highway network; and the details of the project, at a level of detail appropriate for project evaluation and programming. The Executive Director may request a map for any change recommended by the Department or a region.