BUDGET

Summary of Changes from 1997 New Visions document

Working from the findings of the Finance Task Force report, the CDTC staff has explored the components of change to resource availability, to unit costs and to the plan's commitments since the adoption of New Visions in 1997. The result is the following material, revising a major portion of the budget section of the New Visions document.

The exploration has confirmed the task force's perceptions:

1. Plan refinement and implementation efforts have proven the concepts of the New Visions plan and there is no need to review the fundamentals of the plan.

2. Experience has shown that certain -- but not all -- project types come with unit costs higher than anticipated in the New Visions budget.

3. Revenues have indeed tracked well with the New Visions requirement of steady increases in real terms.

Further, the exploration has yielded the following conclusions:

1. Implementation success in certain areas, such as bus fleet replacement and advancement of Congestion Management System (CMS) projects, combined with refinement of cost estimates for demand management, bridge rehab and other items has produced some reductions in funding needs over the next two decades.

2. New experience with ITS, bike and ped, economic development and other project types allows a refinement of resource requirements for these items.

3. As a result, the budget for the New Visions 2021 plan is more credible while remaining generally affordable. The impacts of the cost increases of certain projects (urban reconstructions, Interstate repairs, etc.) do not appear to be sufficient to jeopardize the entire budget plan.

4. This allows CDTC to process the New Visions 2021 budget plan as a true update, with no compelling need to revisit its basic commitments to system preservation, community orientation and steady progress across all functional areas.

Introduction

Recommended actions for the New Visions plan are both institutional and financial in nature. Many institutional actions (such as continuing outreach efforts, improving project evaluation methods or building coalitions between the public and private sector for goods movement) may require significant work, but have little budgetary impact. Better approaches to problem solving are expected to provide improved results for the same or less cost.

Other actions, however, have noticeable financial requirements. For example, actions to fully accommodate bike and pedestrian modes, address deliveries and improve safety and aesthetic design on highways that are reconstructed have an incremental price tag attached. Improvements in transit services or pursuing strategic highway actions (improved airport access, for example) also have potentially significant budgetary implications.

The New Visions Plan budget comprehensively identifies the sources of financing for the plan and levels of expenditures by category. The budget identifies the magnitude of investment needed to accomplish the vision stated earlier. It also deals with the challenging issue of assigning relative priority among needs during constrained budget times.