The North Buckhead Civic Association, et al., аppeal the June 13, 1989, Order of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia denying their motions to enjoin construction of the Georgia 400 Extension, a proposed multi-lane highway with a median designed to acco-modate heavy rail mass transit. Appellants oppose the highway but support the mass transit element, and contend that the district court erred in finding that the ap-pellees complied with the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. § 4321 et seq.. Specifically, appellants assert that the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the project is inadequate for the following reasons: (1) all alternatives were not properly considered in the preparation of the EIS, (2) the administrative record does not supрort the traffic projections and environmental impact studies contained in the EIS, and (3) the Urban Mass Transit Administration
I. Facts and Historical Background
The Federal-Aid Highway Act
In order to implement these provisions, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Urban Mass Transit Administration (UMTA) have promulgated unified regulations with which state and local planners must comply to secure federal aid for transportation projects.
The ARC strategy included three plans, each with increasing specificity: (1) a prospectus and multiyear urban planning work program (RDP);
The FHWA and UMTA will approve urban transportation projects for federal funding only if the projects have been drawn from the TIP and only if the process used in identifying them has been properly certified.
The need for improved transportation service within the North Atlanta Corridor has been recognized by planning agencies, transportation agencies, public officials and private citizens for over thrеe decades.
The proposed project was briefly suspended for several years to allow for completion of other highway construction in the Atlanta area, but in 1981 the North Atlanta Corridor Transportation Study (NACTS) was undertaken by the ARC staff. The NACTS was conducted within the regular transportation planning framework for the Atlanta region, with participation by all jurisdictions, agencies, and the public. The project examined various transportation alternatives which purported to solve the traffic congestion problems in the North Metropolitan area. The study recommended that a multi-lane limited access highway joining 1-285 and 1-85 (North Atlanta Parkway) be constructed to (1) relieve traffic congestion and reduce accidents on local streets; (2) improve access to major traffic generators and local businesses; and (3) maximize transit efficiency to encourage balanced travel. As a result of the NACTS, the ARC Board amended the RTP in 1983 to include the North Atlanta Parkway.
In June 1984, the ARC advanced the Parkway and other transportation improvements to the TIP to allow for federal funding. The RTP was finally amended in March 1985 to increase the total number of lanes in the Parkway to six and to allow for the inclusion of a MARTA rail line in the Parkway median. Before the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) would make federal funds available, however, an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) which conformed to the requirements of NEPA had to be prepared. The EIS, which contained information concerning the social and economic impacts as well as the physical impacts of the proposed project, was prepared by the applicant, the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT), with review by the FHWA.
The preparation of the EIS is essentially a cooperative effort with a number of various agencies contributing in an area of particular expertise. Preparation began in the summer of 1984 when the GDOT initiated the scoping process. During this process, federal, state and local agencies and the general public met to identify issues which might possibly arise. Then, before a draft of the EIS was written, studies were conducted, analyses done, pertinent data accumulated, and alternative means of attaining the established project goals were considered. The draft EIS, after review by the FHWA and the Office of Environmental Policy, was circulated among other federal and state agencies and released to the public in October 1986. Comments on both substance and presentation were solicited. The final EIS contained these comments and a response. In August 1987, the Environmental Programs Manager for FHWA signed the final EIS, having concluded that proper procedures had been followed in its preparation and that the concerns of the public had been appropriately addressed. He signed only after receiving the concurrence of the Office of Environmental Policy and the Officе of Secretary of Transportation. The EIS in its final form was, then, made available to the public, the Environmental Protection Agency and other governmental agencies; additional comments were also accepted. The last step, the signing of the Record of Decision by FHWA’s Environmental Programs Manager, was taken in October 1987.
The alternative recommended in the EIS was the North Atlanta Parkway (Georgia
In December 1988, North Buckhead Civic Association, a neighborhood organization whose members live in the project area and two individuals whose property will be affected by the highway construction, filed an action for declaratory and injunctive relief under The National Environmental Policy Act challenging the sufficiency of the EIS. After a four-day evidentiary hearing, the district court found that the EIS met the requirements as set out in NEPA and dismissed the complaint. Plaintiffs appeal.
II. Standard of Review
The district court, after reviewing the lengthy, complex administrative record, concluded that the agencies’ actions were not “outside their authority or outside the requirements of the law.”
The issue first involves the question of what standard reviewing courts should apply to the agency’s decisions. Appellants assert that a “rule of reason” is appropriate, which presumably means that the reviewing court must make its own determination of reasonableness to ascertain whether the agency action complied with the law. The “reasonableness” standard of review has been used by several circuits, including the Eleventh Circuit.
In Marsh v. Oregon Natural Resources Council,
To determine whether an agency decision was arbitrary and capricious, the reviewing court “must consider whether the decision was based on a consideration of the relevant factors and whether there has been a clear error of judgment.”
Appellant, relying on Sierra Club v. United States Army Corps of Engineers,
Next, we must determine the standard that an appellate court should apply to the district сourt’s decision upholding the agency. In the present case, the district court conducted a four-day evidentiary hearing in which witnesses from the various federal and state agencies involved in the project testified about the preparation of the EIS. Witnesses for the plaintiffs also testified about the anticipated effects that the proposed project would have on the North Atlanta community. Counsel for each party had an opportunity to cross examine witnesses. The district court reached its conclusion on the adequacy of the EIS from the testimony of these knowledgeable witnesses and from submitted documentary evidence. Factual inferences drawn from such sources should not be disregarded on appeal unless clearly erroneous.
A court of appeals review of a district court review of an administrative agency’s record is indeed an “awkward legal animal,”
III. NEPA
Prior to the passage of the The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), environ
NEDA establishes some important “action forcing procedures” designed to compel an agency to commit to the Act’s expressed goals of protecting and promoting environmental quality.
NEPA’s statutory scheme does not rely on substantive, results-based standards to insure that environmental concerns will be adequately addressed. The Act’s action forcing provisions impose essentially procedural requirements on federal agencies.
“If the adverse environmental effects of the proposed action are adequately identified and evaluated, the agency is not constrained by NEPA from deciding that other values outweigh the environmental costs.”
A. Alternatives
Section 102(2)(C)(iii) of NEPA
Unfortunately, NEPA provides little guidance in determining what alternatives must be considered. The CEQ regulations require only that an agency “[rjigorously explore and objectively evaluate all reasonable alternatives, and for alternatives which were eliminated from detailed study, briefly discuss the reasons for their having been eliminated.”
(1) Need and Purpose
According to appellants, the agencies defined the “Need and Purpose” of the project in such a way that the highway was conclusively presumed to be required; the no build/heavy rail alternative was then perfunctorily dismissed for its failure to fully satisfy the project objective. This objection to the “Need and Purpose” section of the EIS reflects a fundamental misapprehension of the role of federal and state agencies in the community planning process established by the Federal-Aid Highway Act (FAHA). The FAHA contemplates a relationship of cooperation between federal and local authorities; each governmental entity plays a specific role in the development and execution of a local transportation project. As discussed above, the statutes were not intended to impose requirements on the cоmpleted plans but only to regulate the planning process.
In the present case, the record is replete with documents indicating that the agencies consulted with and cooperated with local authorities. The district court found that “[t]he transportation demand in the corrido»’ and the goals of the project were developed by the ARC and are set out in the Need and Purpose section of the FEIS ... The Georgia DOT took the goals as developed by ARC and did a feasibility study to try and fulfill them.”
(2) Alternatives Considered
Appellants further assert that the district court erred as a matter of law in holding that the EIS need not consider as a possible alternative a proposal that would only partly fulfill the stated project objective. The two alternatives discussed with greatest detail in the EIS were the preferred alternative, a six-lane tollway with transit median, and the “no build” alternative. Traffic studies cited in the EIS found that while the no build/heavy rail alternа-' tive advocated by appellants would provide additional capacity to the overall North Atlanta Corridor transportation system, it would provide little relief for the congestion in the existing street network. The congestion remaining on surface streets after completion of the no build/heavy rail option was determined to be virtually the same throughout the project corridor as for the no build condition. The traffic studies concluded that “both a highway and a mass transit element were necessary to relieve the congestion in the North Atlanta Corridor; either element standing alone would fail to meet the transportation demand.”
Appellants cite various authorities for the proposition that NEPA requires a full assessment of alternatives that only meet a portion of the stated need and purpose of a project.
We agree with the district court’s conclusion that an alternative partially satisfying the need and purpose of the proposed project may or may not need to be considered depending on whether it can be considered a “reasonable alternative”. Un
B. Substantive Content of the EIS
Appellants next contend that the EIS should be set aside because the agencies’ review of the available traffic and environmental information was incomplete or inaccurate. As an initial matter, appellants argue that the clearly erroneous standard should not be applied to the district court’s findings on the adequacy of the traffic projections and environmental studies in the present case since the issues “involve errors of law by the district court which are subject to de novo review in this court.”
Resolution of this dispute requires analysis of the relevant environmental documents and traffic projections, so we cannot accept appellants’ contentions that our review is of a legal question. The questions presented for review in this section are classic examples of “a factual dispute the resolution of which implicates substantial agency expertise, so we must defer to the informed discretion of the responsible agencies.”
We also cannot accept appellants’ contention that the district court erred in placing on them the burden of introducing affirmative evidence in court to prove that the assumptions underlying the traffic and environmental data were incorrect. As plaintiffs in the district court proceeding, appellants wеre required to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the EIS was inadequate.
(1) Traffic Projections
The traffic projections relied on in rejecting the no build/heavy rail alternative were derived from an analysis of present traffic amounts and projections of future amounts. The ARC provided the applicant, GDOT, with projections of system wide
Appellants’ attack on the traffic projections centers around GDOT’s extrapolated growth trend calculation. According to the aрpellants, the assumptions underlying these projections are questionable because the computer model ignored the possible beneficial effect of mass transit on surface traffic in in the North Atlanta Corridor. The appellants offer no alternate method of computation and point to no specific errors in the calculations.
In Druid Hills Civic Assn. v. Fed. Highway Admin.,
(2) Environmental Data
Appellants next argue that the EIS is inadequate because environmental impacts of MARTA rail line extensions outside the project corridor were not fully considered. This argument turns on whether the Medical Center Station which lies beyond the right-of-way north of the highway corridor was given an adequate environmental assessment. The EIS did evaluate the combined environmental effects of the transit median and thе multilane highway where their routes were congruent. In addition, MARTA studies detailing the environmental consequences of the proposed station outside the right-of-way were incorporated by reference into the EIS.
C. Exclusion of the UMTA
Finally, appellants contend that the EIS is invalid because UMTA did not рarticipate more fully in the development of the EIS. The FHWA invited UMTA to become a cooperating agency when preparation of the EIS began because MARTA officials were interested in securing federal funding for the construction of the mass transit element of the project. UMTA participated in the scoping process, then reviewed and commented on the draft EIS. Later, however, the agency withdrew from the EIS
Appellants argue on appeal that had UMTA remained a cooperating agency throughout the preparation of the Georgia 400 EIS, the environmental impact statement would have included a broader alternatives analysis with consideration of heavy rail only. According to appellants, the FHWA excluded UMTA from serving as a bonafide cooperating agency and accepted the agency’s withdrawal because the FHWA and the Georgia DOT sought to avoid compliance with UMTA’s “New Start” regulations in preparing the EIS. Appellants contend that UMTA’s “New Start” regulations would have required a more rigorous and detailed analysis of alternatives and cost effectiveness. As a result, appellants argue, the FHWA excluded UMTA from an active role as a cooperating agency even though UMTA had special expertise in the projection of mass transit ridership numbers and a special interest in the extension of the MARTA system.
The district court resolved this issue through analysis of federal regulations implementing FAHA and NEPA, which define a cooperating agency as “any Federal agency other than a lead agency which has jurisdiction by law or special expertise with respect to any environmental impact involved in a proposal ... for legislation or other major Federal action significantly affecting the quality of the humаn environment.”
approve, veto, or finance all or part of the proposal, it has jurisdiction by law.
The district court correctly found that UMTA’s involvement as a cooperating agency was not required by the regulations since UMTA did not have jurisdiction by law once MARTA officials decided to use only local funds in the construction of the mass transit portion of the project. The court also found that the FHWA acted within its discretion when it did not seek UMTA’s special expertise in projecting ridership numbers; the FHWA had direct access to the transit ridership numbers that UMTA used in making its projections since UMTA would rely on MARTA to supply these numbers.
We agree with the court’s conclusion that “the EIS cannot be invalidated because UMTA did not participate more fully in the process.”
IV. Conclusion
As discussed above, this court’s role is very limited in the present case. We are not authorized to weigh the relative merits of highways and mass transit or even to determine whether the Georgia 400 Extension should be built at all. These policy decisions are reserved for city and county transportation planning officials. We are required to decide, however, whether the governmental agencies made their decisions concerning the highway in cooperation with these local officials and in con
Notes
. 23 U.S.C. §§ 101-156.
. 49 U.S.C.App. §§ 1601-1618.
. 23 U.S.C. § 134, 49 U.S.C.App. § 1607.
. 23 U.S.C. § 134.
. See 23 C.F.R. Part 450; 49 C.F.R. Part 613; Atlanta Coalition on the Transp. Crisis, Inc. v. Atlanta Regional Comm’n.,
. 23 C.F.R. § 450.106 (1989).
. 23 C.F.R. § 450.114.
. 23 C.F.R. § 450.116.
. 23 C.F.R. § 450.118.
. See 23 C.F.R. § 450.122. Certification involves an annual joint review by the agencies to determine if a proposed project “meets or substantially meets” the requirements of Part 450. 23 C.F.R. § 450.122(b).
. Atlanta Coalition,
. Id.
. FEIS, vol. I at 45.
. Id.
. North Buckhead Civic Assn. v. Skinner, No. 88-2744, at 42 (N.D.Ga. June 13, 1989) (order denying motion for injunction).
. Manasota-88, Inc. v. Thomas,
. — U.S. -,
.
. 5 U.S.C. § 706(2) provides in pertinent part that a reviewing court shall: “hold unlawful and set aside agency action, findings, and conclusions found to be ... arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law; ..."
. We also agree with the Court’s conclusion in Marsh that the difference between the two standards is "not of great pragmatic consequence”,
. Marsh,
. Id.
. SSIH Equip., S.A. v. United States Int'l Trade Comm’n,
. Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resources Defense Council,
. Druid Hills Civic Ass’n v. Federal Highway Admin.,
. Id.
.
. Marsh,
. Sierra Club v. Marsh,
. Sierra Club v. Marsh,
. Id.
. Druid Hills,
. Tarlock, Balancing Environmental Considerations and Energy Demands: A Comment on Calvert Cliffs’ Coordinating Committee v. AEC, 47 Ind.LJ. 645 (1972).
. Robertson v. Metkow Valley Citizens Council, — U.S.-,
. Robertson,
. California v. Block,
. Robertson,
. Id.
. Baltimore Gas & Elec. Co. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.,
. Robertson,
. Vermont Yankee,
. Robertson,
. Sierra Club v. Morton,
. Id.
. Baltimore Gas & Electric,
. Stryckers Bay Neighborhood Council, Inc. v. Karlen,
. Druid Hills, 111 F.2d at 709.
. Robertson,
. 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C)(iii) (1977).
. 40 C.F.R. § 1502.14 (1989).
. Id.
. Piedmont Heights Civic Club Inc. v. Moreland,
. 40 C.F.R. § 1502.14(a) (1989).
. Piedmont Heights,
. Druid Hills, 111 F.2d at 713.
. See Coalition Against a Raised Expressway v. Dole,
. See Isle of Hope Historical Ass'n, Inc. v. United States Army Corps of Eng'rs,
. Id.
. North Buckhead, No. 88-2744, at 14-15.
. EIS at page 46.
. North Buckhead, No, 88-2744, at 25-26.
. See Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. v. Callaway,
. North Buckhead, No. 88-2744 at 27 n. 5.
. South La. Envtl. Council v. Sand,
. Other courts have found this adequate justification for eliminating a no build alternative from consideration. See Lake Heffner Open Space Alliance v. Dole,
. Coalition Against a Raised Expressway v. Dole,
. Druid Hills,
. Marsh,
. Id.
. Druid Hills,
. North Buckhead, No. 88-2744, at 18.
.
. Id.
. Druid Hills,
. EIS at pp. 47, 229, 283; See 40 C.F.R. § 1502.21.
. 40 CFR § 1508.5.
. 40 CFR § 1508.15.
. 23 CFR § 771.111(d).
. 40 CFR § 1508.26.
. 23 CFR § 771.111(d)
. North Buckhead, No. 88-2744, at 39.
. Coalition Against a Raised Expressway,