ACRONYMS

AASHTO: American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials

BNSF: The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company

CALMITSAC: The California Marine and Intermodal Transportation System Advisory Council. This is a statewide group that will coordinate the efforts of subgroups within the Northern and Southern California areas. It will also serve as the California representative in a national effort to gain recognition and support for the Marine Transportation System.

CIRIS: California Inter-Regional Intermodal System, a proposed container shuttle train between Oakland and Stockton.

FIT: Freight Intermodal Fund. A proposed new funding source for freight projects. U.S. Customs would collect new fees on imported cargo for the purpose of funding port and associated inland goods movement projects/programs.

ICTF: Intermodal Container Transfer Facility

ILWU: International Longshore and Warehouse Union

ISTEA: The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991. ISTEA represented a radical departure from previous federal surface transportation funding programs in that it allowed for unprecedented flexibility at the regional and local levels for making decisions on how to spend federal transportation dollars.

ITS: Intelligent Transportation Systems

MPO: Metropolitan Planning Organization. This is the federally-designated regional authority that disburses federal transportation funding in urban areas. The rural counterpart of an MPO is the Regional Transportation Planning Agency (RTPA).

MTC: The Metropolitan Transportation Commission. This is the MPO for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma Counties).

MTS: Marine Transportation System. Includes ports, channels leading to ports, ancillary facilities to ports and the surface transportation infrastructure (not just locally) that is used to move goods between ports and inland points in the United States.

NCMTS: Northern California Marine Transportation System

NORCAL-MTSAC: Northern California Marine Transportation System Advisory Council. This is the Northern California subgroup of CALMITSAC. It prepared the position paper defining the needs of the NCMTS and recommending how best to address those needs.

SACOG: Sacramento Area Council of Governments. This MPO covers all or part of five counties surrounding Sacramento.

SANDAG: San Diego Associated Governments. This is the MPO for San Diego County.

SCAG: Southern California Association of Governments. This MPO includes the counties of Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Imperial.

SJCOG: The San Joaquin County Council of Governments. It is the MPO/RTPA for San Joaquin County, which contains Stockton.

SCMTS: Southern California Marine Transportation System

SOCAL-MTSAC Southern California Marine Transportation System Advisory Council. This is the Southern California subgroup of CALMITSAC. It prepared the position paper defining the needs of the SCMTS and recommending how best to address those needs.

SEA-21: The working title of potential legislation dealing with maritime issues.

TEA-21: Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century

TEA-3: The working title given to the successor legislation to TEA-21. It is currently being drafted and is scheduled to take effect on October 1, 2003. It will likely have a six-year life.

TFC: Transportation Finance Corporation, a federal non-profit corporation proposed by AASHTO to issue tax credit bonds to help fund transportation projects.

UPRR: Union Pacific Railroad