OVERVIEW OF THE UNIFIED
PLANNING WORK PROGRAM
The
Unified Planning Work Program (UPWP) identifies transportation planning and
programming activities which are to be undertaken in the Capital District
during the upcoming year. The intent of
a comprehensive work plan is to coordinate all federally-funded transportation
planning and transportation-related planning activities in the region. Such planning activities are assisted by
several federal sources of funding.
These include:
. Federal Transit Administration (FTA): Section 5303 (formerly Section 8) funds and
Section 5307 (formerly Section 9) funds;
. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA): 1% Planning (PL), Statewide Planning and
Research (SPR) funds and Surface Transportation Program (STP), Congestion
Mitigation / Air Quality (CMAQ) or other capital funds committed to planning
efforts in the Transportation Improvement Program; and,
. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA): Airport Improvement Program funds.
. US Department of Energy funds
supporting the Clean Communities Program
It
should be noted that NYSDOT has chosen not to report its Statewide Planning and
Research (SPR) activities or its Statewide Transit Planning activities in the
UPWP; these are documented separately.
In
addition to the required descriptions of tasks using federal funds, CDTC also
describes contractual efforts with
Work
efforts performed for each item listed in the UPWP is undertaken by the CDTC
Staff, CDTC's participating agencies' staff, or by consultants. The 2002-03 UPWP also includes over $437,500
in activities in support of and funded by the state's twelve MPOs.
CDTC'S NEW VISIONS REGIONAL
TRANSPORTATION PLAN
AND THE UNIFIED PLANNING WORK PROGRAM
The New
Visions work grappled with long-term budgetary needs; generated twenty-five
planning and investment principles and identified forty-three actions to assure
a stable, balanced transportation system; and has raised the stakes regarding
transportation and land use integration.
As a result of all this work, the CDTC cooperative planning effort in
recent years has been directed by the broad vision of the plan.
A
comprehensive analysis of 2030 issues will continue in the 2002-03. In parallel, CDTC's Unified Planning Work
Program continues to be directly explicitly by the New Visions recommendations.
The
original New Visions plan in 1997 included forty-four specific recommendations
for short-range planning efforts. The 2001-02 UPWP identified thirty-four
recommendations that had been implemented in part or in whole by early
2000. Six more were added to the list
through work completed over the past year or reflected in the 2002-03
UPWP.
The
progress made in implementing the recommendations of the existing New Visions
plan is a major source of encouragement and urgency apparent in the New Visions
2030 effort.
OF THE 2002-03 UPWP
New Visions 2030 and Quality Region Initiative
The effort toward developing a 2030 plan has continued over the past
year. The Travel Futures Task Force has
continued to meet, reviewing traffic growth statistics, addressing issues of
the varying needs of different segments of the travel market and exploring new
approaches to dealing with the New Visions "risk assessment"
requirement.
In February 2002, a new task force was launched to oversee a visioning
exercise for the 2030 plan. The effort
implements the New Visions' recommendation for an update to the Capital
District Regional Planning Commission's "Regional Development
Plan". Labeled the Quality Region
Initiative, work will pick up intensity in the 2002-03 program year and material will be developed for public review and
discussion by the end of the year.
The Finance Task Force will
also reconvene in 2002-03 for critical aspects of the 2030 planning effort.
NY 5 Implementation
The NY 5 Land Use and Transportation Concept Plan was
adopted by CDTC as a revision to the New Visions 2021 plan in October
2001. During 2002-03, the Bus Rapid
Transit / Street Design Committee will continue to meet to refine street
section concepts and to help with the community-based planning of the NY 5 BRT
system. In addition, CDTC's zoning
review project will be completed. A
broad-based NY5 Coalition will meet regularly to help facilitate implementation
of study recommendations.
Linkage Program Year Three
The first two years of the Community and Transportation Linkage
program have proven to be quite successful.
Several of the projects are already complete or nearly complete.
The 2002-03 program will include
ten new Linkage studies. The new work
represents approximately $380,000 in federal, state and local funding
commitment to consultant work and CDTC staff support. In February 2002, CDTC initiated a Community
/ Transportation Planning Group to coordinate these many efforts and comparable
efforts funded outside the UPWP.
The range of Linkage projects reflects the commendable
state of cooperative regional/local planning efforts. Planning efforts include bike and pedestrian
planning, urban neighborhood revitalization, suburban town center retrofitting,
pre-development master planning for a major suburban area, urban truck /
neighborhood compatibility planning , waterfront
revitalization and intermodal center exploration.
Rural issues, both for parking and pedestrian circulation
in the Village of Hoosick Falls and historic
Safety Initiative
The staff expects to progress a major safety initiative for
2002-03 in the area of safety. CDTC has
been working for the past several years with NYSDOT to develop a GIS-based
crash data transfer process. In
parallel, the staff has been collecting data on "pedestrian
friendliness" features, including inventory at 400 intersections;
"red light running" data and "yield to pedestrian" data.
As soon as
data permits, the effort will be modeled after the New Visions work,
complementing significant technical evaluation of crash data with a task force
approach. Task forces will explore land
use and highway design considerations, law enforcement practices, and safety
education needs. Work will be
coordinated with local highway safety boards and others. The schedule for this effort is still
uncertain due to inconsistencies in the quality and timeliness of GIS-based
crash data
Development of a New
Regional Model
During 2001-02, CDTC purchased an advanced software
package to allow CDTC to move from its TMODEL2-based modeling system. Initial efforts with the new VISUM software
are already underway. During 2002-03,
work will include refinement to geographic detail (900 zones) and initial work
on a detailed transit model.
The Transit Service Standards Study included as a CDTA lead activity is
now considered a Transit Service Design Guidelines effort and will continue in
2002-03 with further refinements.
Modeling refinements will take place as part of the new model
development. A Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)
development effort will occur as part of the NY 5 BRT / Street Design Committee
work. An effort to collect extensive
baseline data on transit usage will be carried out in 2002-03.
Other Contractual Elements
The 2002-03 UPWP includes providing support to the NYS MPO Association
($125,000, using statewide pooled funds).
CDTC has also volunteered to hold the contract for a statewide effort to
seek to educate stakeholders and demonstrate methods of integrating community
design and transportation system design.
This contract will run $125,000; it is expected that a request for
proposals will be published in March 2002.
CDTC will also hold the contract for a follow-up effort for training,
pegged at $100,000 statewide.
The CDTC/NYSDOT Public Relations Training and Assistance Program
($50,000) has not been initiated yet, but discussions
are focusing on holding two 40-person training workshops on context sensitive
design/community involvement in 2002.
This budget will be rolled over into 2002-03.
"Physical
Implications of Available Long-Range Northway Options" (formerly referred
to as the Pre-MIS Northway Study) has been deferred, pending the results of the
I-87 Corridor Study (led by NYSDOT) funded through the FFY03 Transportation
Appropriations Bill. CDTC will
participate in that study.
Bike/
Pedestrian Planning: The task force continues to
meet monthly; the staff recently completed a regional trails map and will
distribute 10,000 copies. CDTC will continue
to provide ample staff and financial support to these activities. The task force will also participate in the
New Visions 2030 "visioning" work.
Goods
Movement: The task force continues to meet and identify
technical work. Integration of the task
force into the New Visions 2030 travel task force discussions will be an
emphasis in 2002-03.
Arterial
Management: The staff will work with stakeholders in
updating the New Visions arterial management tools, capacity guidelines and
community compatibility indices.
Air
Quality: Work to help NYSDOT and NYSDEC pursue
designation of the Capital District as a "maintenance area" will be
included in the UPWP.
Greenways
Contract: CDTC will complete its small consultant
effort with Greenways funds to identify ways of closing "gaps" in the
bike trails in
Clean
Communities Planning: CDTC will continue to
facilitate work of the Capital District Clean Communities coalition, under
contract to the NYS Energy Research & Development Authority and US
Department of Energy.
REVEST,
Champlain-Hudson International Trade Corridor:
These collaborative efforts will continue; the trade corridor work is
now called the "
TDM,
Access Transit Support: CDTC staff will continue to
assist CDTA in both expanding the regional TDM/transit pass program and in
developing the Access Transit brokerage.
The internet-based Commuter Register program will continue. In 2001-02, CDTC and CDTA successfully
completed a pilot TDM effort with the New York State Department of
Environmental Conservation (DEC), providing financial incentives to employees
at the new downtown work site to use transit.
In 2002-03, the success will be fully documented and new pilot programs
sought.
Thruway
Capacity Analysis: CDTC staff will participate as
a subcontractor in technical analysis of main line capacity issues on the New
York State Thruway in the Capital District.
The study will examine options for a high speed EZ-Pass connection
between the Northway and Thruway southbound among other subjects.
Statewide
Activities: The NYSMPO association plans to complete its
statewide investigation of transportation financing needs in 2002-03. Other candidate shared-cost projects include
various staff training exercises, work on policy issues for the TEA-21
reauthorization discussions in
Other: Major effort will continue to be devoted to
data collection, support to