Capital District                                                                                                        January 2004

Transportation Committee

 

 

Working Group Mission Statements

(With greater detail for Working Group B)

 

Background

 

The Capital District Transportation Committee is in the midst of an update to its official New Visions regional transportation plan.  The update will extend the horizon to 2030 and address emerging issues.  The new plan will guide transportation planning activities and highway and transit capital and operating investment for the region.

 

A major initiative as part of the update effort is the joint work with Capital District Regional Planning Commission staff called “New Visions for a Quality Region.”  A Quality Region Task Force has assisted the staff in the issues facing the region in preparing a discussion document, “Pursuing Quality in the Capital Region.” 

 

Over the past year and a half, the subject of regional development has received a great amount of attention not only at the CDTC table, but also through efforts of the Center for Economic Growth (CEG), A Regional Initiative to Support Empowerment (ARISE), the Business / Higher Education Roundtable and others.  The Quality Region Task Force has sought to identify those subjects that the CDTC/CDRPC effort should focus upon – to help put “meat on the skeleton” of the regional development discussions occurring at CDTC and in other forums. 

 

In January 2004, CDTC determined that this work would be best facilitated by using small “working groups” to help the staff analyze in parallel the subjects identified by the Quality Region Task Force and guide the documentation of the analysis.  Working groups include staff, some task force members and a few others selected based on their knowledge and interest in the subject. 

 

Mission of the Working Groups

 

A working group is not a decision-making forum.  The format of meetings is not to debate issues or policies.  The working group’s purpose is primarily to serve as a touchstone or sounding board for staff to use to assure that the technical agenda being explored is appropriate and that documentation of results is balanced and complete.  Products reviewed by the working group will go to the Quality Region Task Force and be circulated beyond to a broad audience before policy directions are determined. 

 

The technical reports guided by working group review will attempt to articulate issues and begin to identify on one hand those potential policy responses that are likely to receive consensus support once they are circulated, and on the other hand those policy issues that require broad discussion and debate.

 

The Charge to Each Working Group

 

Working Group A :  The charge is to guide the preparation of a technical report,  “Effects of Alternative Growth and Development Scenarios”.  The technical work will involve building from CDRPC’s 2040 projections, showing alternative higher and lower growth levels and differing development patterns and articulating both quantitative and qualitative issues.  This will primarily be a “what if” exercise.  Some modeling of user costs, social /environmental costs, etc. will be involved.  CEG’s intended development modeling effort should be coordinated with Working Group A’s effort.

 

Working Group B: 

 

The charge is to prepare two technical reports:

 

Expressway System Issues and Options

 

  • Inventory the condition of Capital District expressways; when will each section need work, and what type of work.  For example, a decision has been made to do maintenance work on the Northway in Albany County and defer reconstruction; when will full reconstruction become necessary?  As much as possible, this work should consider the age and condition of specific structures in the system.
  • Develop cost estimates for work necessary to address the needs of expressway infrastructure, including structures.
  • Explore the concept of adding capacity to the expressway system at specific locations based on infrastructure needs (including widening bridges for MPT, addressing substandard shoulders).  Develop criteria to be used; identify physical constraints; identify appropriate candidate locations; develop cost estimates.
  • Explore the need for strategic capacity expansions, consistent with CDTC’s Congestion Management System.  Consider concepts already proposed such as HOT lanes (High Occupancy Toll); light rail or bus rapid transit on the Northway.  Assess in the context of:
    • limited resources;
    • the ability of ITS to manage congestion;
    • the quality of the whole trip (for example would widening the Northway southbound simply allow people to arrive at a gridlocked I-90 sooner?);
    • land use, environmental and physical constraints;
    • the propensity for new capacity in an oversaturated corridor to “fill up” based on, for example, trips which currently are avoiding the peak hour or using other routes;
    • Consideration of more than one peak hour.

Strategic expansions might include short segments such as widening between Northway Exits 4 and 6.  Cost estimates will be developed.

 

The analytical work will confront the fact that the expressway system has reached or will shortly reach the end of both its intended physical and its functional life; identify issues and options surrounding maintaining and rebuilding the expressway system and consider alternative policy treatment of the subject of functional obsolescence in an era of multiple constraints. 

 

 Concepts for Operational Efficiencies

 

  • Review and summarize the existing and upcoming inventory of hardware, software, services, personnel, and agency coordination; include description of system as enhanced by TRANSMIT;
  • Assess needs, benefits and costs related to future technologies such as advanced traveler information systems and anticipated products of the I-90 ATIS study;
  • Describe needs for future expansion to provide services for the existing expressway system coverage; and future needs for  expanding system coverage, both on the expressway system and for parallel arterials;
  • Estimate future costs, both capital and operating;
  • Using MIST data and other sources, describe the benefits of the existing TMC as well as future potential benefits.  Benefits should be described in quantitative terms as much as possible, but also in terms easily understandable to the public.

 

This work will incorporate current ITS system planning and the explore the maximum potential of operational and traveler information initiatives to address future system issues

 

Working Group C:  The charge is to guide the preparation of a technical report, “Costs and Benefits of Potential Major Investments”.  The subject includes enumeration of plausible high-scale candidate investment for the Capital District, drawing from initiatives viewed as successful in other regions of the nation.  These range from rebuilding I-787 as a riverfront arterial to urban rail systems (ala Raleigh-Durham).

 

Additionally, the group will guide the preparation of another technical report, “Transportation System Design and Regional Settlement Patterns”.  The work will involve a review of land use – transportation interrelationships with a particular emphasis on the likely influence of transportation policy on broad patterns of suburban development, urban revitalization, open space protection.

 

Working Group D:  The charge is to guide the preparation of a technical report, “Larger-than-Regional Policy Concepts”.  The document will enumerate and amplify upon the many policy issues have emerged at CDTC and other forums that require state or federal intervention.  Many but not all of these issues relate to “leveling the playing field” by addressing unequal treatment of older urban areas and new suburban areas.

 

Working Group E:  The charge is to guide the preparation of a technical report, “Concepts for Assisting Local Decision Making in a Regional Context”.  The effort will articulate approaches to both improving the capacity of municipal planning and approval processes and improving the external support structure provided to local planners.