The following are additional statewide
cooperative studies partly funded with CDTC’s PL funds.
1. Statewide
MPO Association Staff Support (CDTC administered contract; see Task 1.68)
2. Integrated
Transportation and Community Design (CDTC administered contract; see Task 5.85)
3. Additional Statewide
Data Collection (high tech)
ITS implementation across the state is
moving the transportation profession into uncharted territory of data
collection. GIS implementation has
brought NYSDOT and MPOs into new technology applications including
interpretation of satellite imagery.
There is a clear opportunity in
2001-02 to identify the technology-driven data sources currently available or
expected in the near future and recommend a course of action for NYSDOT and the
MPOs. Effort in 2001-02 could be
expected to be limited to a consultant effort to survey the current state of
the practice and develop recommendations.
Implementation of technology-driven data collection would occur in later
years.
Budget: $100,000. The Binghamton
Metropolitan Transportation Study will administer a consultant contract on behalf
of the NYS MPO Association.
4. Freight Data Training
The New York
Metropolitan Transportation Council has engaged university assistance to be
trained in the understanding and use of Reebie commodity flow data. The shared cost aspect will be a modest
supplement to the NYMTC contract to extend the training to MPO staffs and
others in the rest of the state.
Budget:
$15,000. The Syracuse Metropolitan
Transportation Council (SMTC) will administer a consultant contract on behalf
of the NYS MPO Association.
5 Examination of
long-range financing needs for transportation in New York
The effort is a
joint MPO undertaking through consultant assistance and broad stakeholder and
public involvement statewide. Issues
include stable financing for transit (and a critical look at financial
requirements of transit elements of MPO plans), local highway infrastructure
condition and needs, quality-of-life and economic development projects, state
infrastructure needs, and strategic regional and statewide projects. It could also embrace long-range passenger
rail needs and public costs of regional and statewide freight programs. The effort would not be the primary location
for identifying needs and setting plans, but rather would be the effort in
which the aggregate costs of these plans are clarified and financing options
are examined. The effort is expected to
begin after the current negotiations on a new multi-year state transportation
budget are completed. The product of
this effort would provide a basis for discussions with the state legislature,
input to subsequent MPO and state plans, and a needs assessment for
Congressional development of the NEXT-TEA legislation.
Budget:
$200,000. The Genesee Transportation
Council will administer a consultant contract on behalf of the NYS MPO
Association.
6. Exploration of Factors
Influencing Future Travel Behavior
Telecommuting, e-commerce and similar
shifts in economic practices may have significant changes on the nature, amount
and time-of-day of travel demand in New York.
All MPOs struggle with getting a handle on such issues as the likely
extent of substitution of electronic communication for personal travel. A 5% penetration of telecommuting into the
workplace or e-commerce into the retail arena can be ignored in system
investment policies; in contrast, a 40% penetration would call for radical
reconsideration of policies. At the
same time, e-commerce and just-in-time delivery of both manufacturing
components and consumer products is generating significant increases in
long-distance freight traffic and local delivery traffic.
Further, there is a need to examine
the likely shift in travel by purpose, vehicle occupancy and time-of-day caused
by the expected increase in the average age of the population. Even short of changes from technological
impacts on peak hour travel, it is possible that an older population base in
2030 with a smaller percentage of residents in the work force and greater
leisure time will produce more daily trips per capita but fewer peak hour trips
per capita than does today's population base.
With a continuing heavy influence of
design hour traffic forecasts in the design of highway facilities, near-term
capital decisions are being made across the state without regard to potential
shifts in travel.
This initiative would seek to explore
these issues through a literature search, use of expert panels and examination
of New York state demographic and travel data.
The effort would have a clear focus on the issues specific to New York's
metropolitan areas. That is, the effort
will recognize that modestly-growing areas such as those in New York will
likely experience a very different impact from changing travel behavior than
will fast-growing areas. Conclusions
from the study would be used at the MPO level to refine policies regarding
congestion management and highway capacity construction. NYSDOT could take findings from the study to
refine highway design practices.
In 2001-02, the NYS MPO Association
reached out to the national Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations
(AMPO) to seek partners in this project.
Interest of MPOs in other states in entering a pilot pooled fund project
on this subject will be gauged before the project is initiated. Budget:
$100,000.
7. ITS
Operations and Management Integration Strategies
A new
entry in the shared-cost list is a statewide effort to pursue strategies for
integrating system operations and management activities into the MPO
process. As transportation system
emphasis increasingly moves away from construction of capital solutions to
mobility problems and toward operational actions, there is a clear need to
integrate the MPO process and operational activities. An MPO will be identified to host a consultant effort to work
with highway and transit operating agencies and MPOs across the state to
identify issues, consider alternatives, and recommend promising
strategies. Budget: $150,000.
These efforts and the three statewide
efforts administered by CDTC (AMPO dues and MPO administration) total approximately
$686,000. Of this, $200,000 is FTA funded and the balance funded with PL
funds. At an approximate 5% cost share
for statewide efforts, CDTC’s share of these efforts is about $34,000. In total, $550,000 of FHWA PL funds have
been set-aside for shared cost initiatives, even though the current list will
not draw on all these funds during 2001-02.
The total of all commitments to shared
cost initiatives in 2001-02 is shown in the table below. Projects in italics will be administered by
CDTC and are described as CDTC tasks above.
|
Project |
FY00-01 Budgeted |
FY 00-01 Expended to date |
Rollover |
FY 01-02 Budgeted |
Total Available for Project |
|
1. Staff Support Contract (see Task 1.68) |
$100,000 |
$50,000 |
$50,000 |
$100,000 |
$150,000 |
|
2. Integrated Transportation and Community
Design (see Task 5.85) |
$100,000 |
$0 |
$100,000 |
$25,000 |
$125,000 |
|
3. Statewide Data Collection |
$150,000 |
$0 |
$150,000 |
$0 |
$150,000 |
|
4. Freight Data Training |
$10,000 |
$0 |
$10,000 |
$5,000 |
$15,000 |
|
5. Statewide Long Term Funding Needs Assessment (2 parts) |
$200,000 |
$0 |
$200,000 |
$0 |
$200,000 |
|
6. Travel Factors |
$100,000 |
$0 |
$100,000 |
$0 |
$100,000 |
|
7. ITS Integration Strategies |
$0 |
$0 |
$0 |
$150,000 |
$150,000 |
|
TOTAL |
$660,000 |
$50,000 |
$610,000 |
$280,000 |
$890,000 |