Litigation Procedure Appellate Jurisdiction. The defendants claimed that the court of appeals lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal, because the district court had entered a final decision on some issues while remanding other issues (the Section 4(f) compliance issues) to FTA for further consideration. The court of appeals held that “the remand should not defeat our jurisdiction to review the unquestionably final dismissal of the remainder of the claims.” Therefore, the court concluded that it had jurisdiction to consider the plaintiffs’ appeal. NEPA Purpose and Need. The plaintiffs claimed that the purpose and need was too narrow because it specifically called for providing “high-capacity rapid transit” and “an alternative to private automobile travel” in the study corridor. The court rejected that argument, finding that FTA had properly relied upon objectives defined in the region’s metropolitan long-range transportation plan, which specifically identified a need for a high-capacity, high-speed transit project to support local land use policies. In reaching this conclusion, the court noted that a purpose and need statement can included purposes identified in a metropolitan transportation plan. Alternatives. The plaintiffs claimed that FTA improperly relied on an Alternatives Analysis – completed prior to the NEPA process – as the basis for eliminating alternatives during the screening stage of the NEPA process. In particular, the plaintiffs claimed that FTA had improperly eliminated a “managed lanes” alternative, which would have involved building dedicated highway lanes for transit vehicles and high-occupancy passenger vehicles, as well as a light-rail transit alternative. The court held that, under federal laws and regulations, it is appropriate for the federal lead agency to rely on a pre-NEPA planning study as long as (1) the federal lead agency furnished guidance in its preparation and independently evaluated the document, (2) and the planning study was conducted with public review and a reasonable opportunity to comment. The court held that those requirements had been met, so it upheld FTA’s elimination of the managed-lanes and light-rail transit alternatives. Section 4(f) Avoidance Alternatives. The plaintiffs claimed that the managed lanes alternative and bus rapid transit alternatives should have been selected as feasible and prudent avoidance alternatives for impacts to Section 4(f) resources. The court held that the record supported FTA’s conclusion that these alternatives did not meet the project’s purpose and need and therefore were not prudent: “The MLA [managed lanes alternative] failed to meet the purposes of the Project because, according to the City and FTA’s expert analysis, it would actually increase transit times, would not improve corridor mobility or travel reliability, and would not reduce congestion, support planned concentrations of future population and employment growth, or substantially improve service or access to transit for transit-dependent communities.” … “Buses would still have to operate in mixed traffic, and would not alleviate roadway congestion. Moreover, there was no identified funding source for bus rapid transit.” The plaintiffs claimed that some of the evidence in the record contradicted these conclusions, and claimed that FTA’s decision was flawed because FTA had not specifically documented its conclusions regarding all of the contrary evidence. The court held that “The FTA was not required to further document its determination that the MLA and bus rapid transit alternatives were imprudent. It did not have to make explicit findings as to all the data presented.” Identification of Archeological Sites. The plaintiffs claimed that FTA had violated Section 4(f) by failing to complete the identification and evaluation of Native Hawaiian burial sites prior to the completion of the NEPA process. They claimed that FTA should have completed Archaeological Inventory Surveys (“AIS”) along the entire twenty-mile length of the Project prior to its approval. The court held that FTA had met its obligation to undertake a “reasonable and good faith investigation” by assessing the potential presence of archeological resources during the NEPA process and entering into a Programmatic Agreement under which sub-surface investigations would be completed after the NEPA process: “Defendants commissioned an Archeological Resources Technical Report, which used soil survey data, archeological records, land survey maps, and field observations to identify unknown burial sites and predict the likelihood of finding additional burial sites during different phases of the Project. Additionally, Defendants entered into a programmatic agreement with the State Historic Preservation Officer, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and other federal entities outlining the procedures for burial sites that are discovered during construction, including requiring archaeological inventory surveys prior to the final engineering and design phase of the Project and providing specific protocols for addressing burials or other archaeological resources that are discovered. …. Defendants have made a good faith and reasonable effort to identify known archaeological sites along the proposed Project route and have developed an appropriate plan for dealing with sites that may be discovered during construction.”