[1] Maintain Good infrastructure conditions

Maintain the region's highways, bridges, and transit system in a state of good repair. Focus the public's investment on identified important interconnected facilities.

Expected Benefits

Maintaining the tremendous public investment that has been made in transportation infrastructure is the smart thing to do. Not a lot of new roads are being built; therefore existing facilities must be preserved and enhanced. A performance-based management strategy paints bridges before they corrode, builds long-lasting pavements, and matches design treatment to road function (not necessarily ownership or funding category). This provides baseline support to the regional economy.

The identification of priority networks makes the most efficient and effective use of available resources. The largest impact will be seen by directing funding to the functionally most significant part of the transportation system.

Implications

Infrastructure projects have long been the priority for CDTC and NYSDOT. Strides in overall pavement and bridge condition have been made in the past decade. The continuing need to devote upwards of 70% of CDTC's TIP resources to infrastructure renewal has major budgetary consequences. Embracing a risk assessment approach to designing infrastructure projects will result in less building of reserve capacity that may or may not be needed in the future. This trade-off frees resources to address current needs in other areas.

Increased funding would be required to fully implement all New Visions recommendations. However, this strategy provides helpful guidance in constrained budget times, as well, by focusing certain types of improvements on specific systems.

Actions

1) Make the Capital District transportation system safer.

"Travel inevitably places us at some risk. Given the high economic, social, and personal costs of crashes and other incidents, safety must be government's highest priority in transportation."[1]

Safety will receive continued and heightened attention during infrastructure renewal through supplemental safety projects, and in conjunction with other actions in the Capital District. Safety considerations will go beyond the traditional focus on reducing crashes and high-accident locations on state highways. Providing highly visible crosswalks at busy intersections, sidewalk snow removal so people can get to bus stops, using bicycle-safe drainage grates, and reducing the number of driveway cuts also reduce the risk of traffic-related injury and death. They are part of the safety emphasis of the New Visions plan. To achieve stated goals of reducing the annual cost of crashes (accidents), the plan also counts on progress by manufacturers in improving safety features in vehicles.

This action also assumes steady progress in development of a Bridge Management System for all bridges, and steady progress through capital and operating budget commitments to significantly reduce physical deficiencies on both state and non-state bridges.

2) Continue adequate highway and bridge maintenance efforts.

Highway and bridge maintenance and operations is the single largest commitment of transportation resources in the Capital Region. Essential services, such as snow removal and pothole patching are captured in this category. Significantly, this area is out of the direct purview of CDTC's decision-making. However, successful implementation of New Visions will require continued commitment to current levels of expenditures for maintenance, as well and increased efficiencies resulting from intergovernmental coordination, consolidation, and joint purchasing. These assumed efficiencies permit improved service over the long run, such as more frequent shoulder sweeping on bike routes.

3) Carry out an effective highway and bridge rehabilitation and reconstruction program.

Existing highway and bridge conditions and condition goals recommended by the Infrastructure task force are summarized in the following tables.

Table 5: Pavement Condition Goals

				1994				Goal
Highway Group		Lane-Miles		% Poor		% Fair		% Poor		% Fair
	Interstates		554		5%		24%		0%		20%
	Non-Interstate NHS Roads		272		12%		12%		5%		20%
	Non-NHS Principal Arterials		679		15%		24%		10%		20%
	Other Federal-Aid Roads		2534		17%		22%		15%		20%
	Local (non-Federal-Aid) Roads		9442		9%		22%		<=15%		20%

Table 6: Bridge Conditions and Goals

	1995		Goal
Bridges	% Deficient	Rated< 3.0	% Deficient	Rated< 3.0
State	38%	1%	20%	0%
Non-State	42%	1%	20%	0%

An effective highway and bridge rehabilitation program is one that is adequately funded and uses life-cycle considerations and system management techniques to prolong good conditions and maximize the return on investment. Using existing revenues more effectively in this manner must proceed raising additional transportation revenues. This action calls for continued resurfacing and reconstruction of state highways at a schedule consistent with the State's Pavement Management System, using the type of repair called for in its and CDTC's pavement models. This action also calls for treatment of higher-volume, higher-function non-state roads with a similar repair and reconstruction approach. Currently, such work on non-state roads is rare. While pavement condition alone can be maintained on these non-state roads using lower scale repair treatments, the importance of these roads warrants more significant work to produce a longer repair life, safer operations, and other benefits. Continuing current local (non-state) repair practice on other local roads appears to meet pavement goals.

The use of recycled materials in pavement renewal is encouraged by TEA-21. NYSDOT and local highway agencies should use recycled materials wherever possible to minimize the environmental impact of the transportation system, the need for new gravel mines, and construction debris disposal. The substitution of glass, rubber (old tires) and even paper sludge in road base materials has been tested elsewhere, and the Capital Region should be in forefront of those using these innovative materials.

4) Maintain transit equipment and facilities in a state of good repair.

Federal, state and local financing over the past 25 years has allowed the Capital District Transportation Authority (CDTA) and publicly-sponsored bus operations (such as Upstate Transit) to maintain equipment and facilities in a state of good repair. CDTA replaced vehicles on nearly a twelve-year cycle and updated garage facilities when needed. Clean, reliable, modern buses are required to provide dependable service, keep operating costs under control and offer an attractive product in the competitive market place. The transportation system will not be well served by equipment that suffers from deferred maintenance and lack of capital investment.

This action requires continued emphasis on effective maintenance practices, an adequate supply of spare vehicles, and a reasonable replacement schedule. A reasonable replacement schedule can be defined as either continuing past practice (routine maintenance combined with a twelve-year replacement cycle) or increasing maintenance and rehabilitation efforts to allow for an extension of replacement cycles. Both CDTA and private transit operations require fleets in good repair.

Most CDTA full-sized buses have been replaced recently with cleaner, low-floor buses. Vehicles will be replaced over coming years with even cleaner "Clean Air" vehicles -- diesels which have significantly reduced emissions from previous vehicles or perhaps even hybrid electric vehicles. CDTA will examine experiences and acquire technology that is appropriate based on:

· Air quality needs of the Capital District and beyond;

· Purchase price, reliability and operating costs; and

· Opportunities for economies of scale in purchasing (in conjunction with other New York transit properties or public/private partnerships).

Vehicle replacement has permitted a steady increase in coming years in the percentage of the fleet and the percentage of transit service that is fully accessible to the disabled community to nearly 100%. CDTA has pioneered the use of low floor fixed route buses to accomplish its accessibility commitment.

Private operators are encouraged to work with CDTA and the New York State Department of Transportation to understand and select an appropriate clean air technology for vehicle replacement.

5) Embrace a "risk assessment" approach for capacity considerations in infrastructure project design.

Rather than routinely designing bridge structures and roads to meet traffic projections of 25 or 35 years in the future, a risk assessment approach examines the costs and benefits of alternative designs and makes capacity treatment an explicit choice. A risk assessment approach to bridge reconstruction asks questions like:

· Do 20-year traffic projections justify widening the bridge now?

· Do 30 or 40-year projections?

· What is the projected congestion risk of replacement in-kind?

· How much does it cost to widen it now?

· How much more will it cost to widen the bridge at different points in the future?

· Are the future capacity constraints on this bridge of a higher priority than addressing existing current congestion elsewhere in the region?

· Can the future capacity concerns be directly linked with private developments, so private sector funding, such as mitigation fees, are the more appropriate fund source?

While the concept of such analysis is slowly taking hold within the project development arean, the Travel Task Force has identified the need for further work on procedures to implement this action as a high priority for CDTC in the 2021 plan.

6) Establish priority treatment networks for improvements beyond basic infrastructure renewal.

Specific networks of facilities receive special treatment in this prioritization approach. Improvements are then made as part of necessary renewal work. New Visions task forces identified preliminary "priority treatment" networks for transit, bicycles and pedestrians, goods movement, intelligent transportation systems, and arterial corridor management. Further refinement, mapping and review by affected parties are required before these networks can be formally specified by CDTC.

The identification of priority networks does not imply that improvements off the defined networks are not warranted or desirable. For example, bicycle or pedestrian accommodation in a given corridor can often be provided more safely and/or cost-effectively on parallel facilities, rather than on the shoulder of a busy state highway. Flexibility is required in interpretation, so long as the basic message -- these are important facilities -- is not lost. The Budget chapter uses task force-identified priority networks -- regardless of the jurisdictional ownership of the roads -- in developing cost estimates and resource requirements. The full implementation budget is sufficient to allow construction of AASHTO standard facilities on the entire state system of roads with increasing sensitivity to issues beyond moving cars. It also allows significant upgrades to the non-state road system reflecting half of the federal-aid road network.

The New Visions task forces identified the following preliminary priority networks.

Bicycle and Pedestrian Priority Network

A bicycle and pedestrian priority treatment network provides a "backbone" for a region-wide bicycle and pedestrian travel system. The ±355 mile network contains those facilities which have high existing or potential bicycle and pedestrian travel but also present many barriers, including high traffic volumes/speeds, limited pavement space and busy or confusing traffic patterns. These facilities connect major activity centers, are accessible to residential areas via local roads, and have few practical alternatives nearby. The facilities included in the network are listed in the Making the Capital District More Bicycle- and Pedestrian-Friendly: A Toolbox and Game Plan technical report.

Over time, CDTC and local municipalities will designate Priority Network facilities as "bike routes". Appropriate signage will identify such routes. These facilities will be improved to Group B/C cyclist standards as set forth in the FHWA Selecting Roadway Design Treatments to Accommodate Bicycles report. Routine maintenance, such as shoulder sweeping, will be increased. Sidewalks, crosswalks and pedestrian phases at traffic signals will be added or improved. A "where to ride" map of the Network will be developed and widely distributed.

Arterial Management Priority Network

The New Visions report entitled Land Use/Traffic Conflict Inventory and Measurement contains level of compatibility ratings for over 275 roads covering nearly 850 miles of Capital District roadway. The access management priority network is defined as:

· Those road segments that show a high degree of conflict between commercial or residential land use and traffic, resulting in "poor" compatibility (Level of Compatibility D, E or F); and

· Additional road segments where either the potential for commercial development or intrusion of vehicle traffic through residential corrido