(1) Terminal improvement, vessel improvement, and vessel acquisition project funding requests must adhere to the capital plan, include route-based planning, and be submitted with a predesign study that:
(a) Includes all elements required by the office of financial management;
(b) Separately identifies basic terminal and vessel elements essential for operation and their costs;
(c) Separately identifies additional elements to provide ancillary revenue and customer comfort and their costs;
(d) Includes construction phasing options that are consistent with forecasted ridership increases;
(e) Separately identifies additional elements requested by local governments and the cost and proposed funding source of those elements;
(f) Separately identifies multimodal elements and the cost and proposed funding source of those elements;
(g) Identifies all contingency amounts;
(h) Identifies any terminal, vessel, or other capital modifications that would be required as a result of the proposed capital project;
(i) Includes planned service modifications as a result of the proposed capital project, and the consistency of those service modifications with the capital plan; and
(j) Demonstrates the evaluation of long-term operating costs including fuel efficiency, staffing, and preservation.
(2) The department shall prioritize vessel preservation and acquisition funding requests over vessel improvement funding requests.