Focusing Resources, Economic Investment, and Guidance to Help Transportation Act of 2011 - Declares U.S. policy with respect to freight transportation.
Establishes within the Office of the Secretary of Transportation (DOT) an Office of Freight Planning and Development.
Directs the Secretary to develop a long-term National Freight Freight Transportation Strategic Plan to guide planning and investments in the national transportation system to move freight.
Directs the Secretary to: (1) develop new or improve existing tools to support an outcome-oriented, performance-based approach to evaluate proposed freight-related and other transportation projects; (2) facilitate the collection of transportation-related data to support a broad range of evaluation methods and techniques to assist in making transportation investment decisions; and (3) consider improvements to the Commodity Flow Survey that reduce identified freight data gaps and deficiencies and help evaluate forecasts of transportation demand.
Directs the Secretary to: (1) establish a competitive grant program for capital investment projects that improve the efficiency of the national transportation system to move freight, and (2) give priority to projects with the highest system performance improvement relative to their benefit-cost analysis.
Limits the federal share of project net capital costs at 80%.
Requires a grant recipient to submit to the Secretary: (1) a project management plan and an annual financial plan for a project with a total cost of $500 million or more, and (2) an annual financial plan for a project with a total cost of $100 million or more.
Repeals specified prohibitions against the transfer of amounts from the Highway Trust Fund to the Port Infrastructure Development Fund.