PLANNING
COMMITTEE MEETING
Meeting Minutes
February 6, 2008
Melissa Ashline-Heil, City of Cohoes
Brandley Birge, City of Saratoga Springs
Frank Commisso, Albany Port Authority
Todd Fabozzi representing Rocky Ferraro, Capital District
Regional Planning Commission
Steve Feeney, Schenectady County
Michael Franchini, Albany County (Chairman)
Fred Howard, Rensselaer County
George Laveille, Town of Bethlehem
Barbara McHugh, Town of Clifton Park
John Poorman, Capital District Transportation Committee (Secretary)
Dave Rettig, NYS Department of Transportation Region 1
Bill Roehr, City of Troy
Dede Rudolph, City of Albany
Mike Valentine, Saratoga County
Steve Watts, Town of Halfmoon
Kristina Younger, Capital District Transportation Authority (Vice-Chair)
STAFF AND OTHERS
Anne Benware, Capital District Transportation Committee
Frank Bonafide, NYSDOT Region 1
Rob Cherry, NYSDOT Region 1
Dave Jukins, Capital District Transportation Committee
Henry LaBarba, Town of East Greenbush
Teresa LaSalle, Capital District Transportation Committee
Doug Melnick, City of Albany
Sandy Misiewicz, Capital District Transportation Committee
Sree Nampoothiri, Capital District Transportation Committee
Fred Nero, Town of East Greenbush
Chris O’Neill, Capital District Transportation Committee
Glenn Posca, Capital District Transportation Committee
Jason Purvis, Capital District Transportation Committee
Deborah Stacey, Capital District Transportation Committee
Michael Wieszchowski, Laberge
Group/Village of Colonie
VISITORS ISSUES
Chairman Franchini opened the meeting at approximately 9:35 am. There were no
visitor’s issues.
Action Items
ADMINISTRATION
Approval
of the January 9,
2008 Meeting Minutes
The meeting notes from the January 9thth
meeting were approved with one minor correction. Under Status of Planning Activities, CDTA
asked that “in the vicinity of Exit 12” be changed to “Saratoga County”.
2008-10 UNIFIED PLANNING WORK PROGRAM
Approval
of the Draft 2008-10 UPWP
The draft UPWP was distributed at the January Planning Committee meeting. A
revised draft was distributed to members prior to this meeting. For public participation/input purposes,
postcards were mailed to CDTC’s extensive mailing lists and the draft document
was posted on the web. Dave Rettig stated that Brian Rowback will likely make comments during the comment period; a
meeting with Brian is scheduled for next week. If substantive comments are received on the
draft from NYSDOT or others, the document will be revised and will be reviewed
again by this committee. Otherwise, the
draft document will be presented to the Policy Board for their approval at the
March 6th meeting. Members
approved the 2008-10 UPWP with one abstention from NYSDOT.
TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENT
PROGRAM
Project
A473 Albany
Waterfront/Corning Preserve Improvements
The City of Albany prepared a proposed amendment to the 2007-12 TIP which
would add $4.8M to project A473 as demo funds.
The city apologized for the fact that this proposed amendment was not
distributed with the mailout materials.
Project A473 originally received $6.8M from a federal earmark in 2005
but there was some confusion regarding the intended location of the
project—Corning Preserve, Albany vs. Corning NY. The project
location for $2M of this earmark is still unresolved, but the $4.8M earmarked
for the city of Albany was never added to the TIP. Members approved the amendment. The TIP will read
$6.0M in demo funds and $0.250 in enhancement funds for the construction phase
in 2008-9.
2007-12 TIP
Set-Aside Solicitation Materials
At the January Planning Committee meeting, CDTC staff was directed to put together draft
solicitation materials for four TIP set-asides — 1. Bicycle/Pedestrian projects 2. Intersections/Round-abouts/Queue Jumpers 3. ITS for Local Signals and 4. Safety for Non-State Roads. The draft Project Justification Package (PJP)
including specific evaluation criteria for each set-aside was developed and
distributed to members. Before
discussion on the draft material occurred, information about the unexpected
announcement of the Transportation Enhancement Program was distributed. The deadline for the Enhancement Program is June 27,
2008.
This program announcement and deadline could impact the timeline of the
Bicycle/Pedestrian set-aside, since there is overlap between the two programs. After some discussion, members decided that
the timeline for the bicycle/pedestrian set-aside should not be changed. Discussion on the Intersections/Round- abouts/Queue
Jumper Set-Aside followed. Members
agreed that all types of intersection improvements would be eligible, subject
to CDTC’s New Visions roundabout principle.
New Visions clearly echoes NYSDOT’s policy that roundabouts will be
considered first for all major intersection reconstruction projects, and be
selected as the preferred alternative if the analysis shows it to be feasible. Members approved the solicitations for all
four set-asides, with the above corrections noted, the evaluation criteria and
the schedule.
Options
for Competitive Safety Set-Asides
Discussions turned to the safety set-aside and the two
options that were considered at the January meeting. The two options were: 1)
program/solicit for the CDTC Planning area only or 2) program/solicit for the
Region 1 (eight counties) area. CDTC and
NYSDOT Region 1 staff met with AGFTC and representatives from Essex and Greene
counties to iron out details of an 8-county solicitation. CDTC staff also developed a CDTC only
solicitation as instructed by the Planning Committee. A comparison
chart was also drafted highlighting the differences between the two
approaches. In general, the 8 county
approach partly incorporates CDTC’s principles, but is less technically
sophisticated. Option 1 provides more
room for judgment at this table. After
some discussion, Option 1 was approved by members with one abstention by
NYSDOT.
The discussions moved to the solicitation itself. Questions regarding eligible capital vs.
operating costs, project minimum/maximums and linear vs. location specific
projects were discussed at length. It
was suggested that projects be capped at $500,000 (federal) with overmatch
allowed, that operating costs be disallowed and that projects must be location
specific based on crash history. The
draft set-aside solicitation was approved with these three changes noted.
Discussion
Items
NYSDOT PUBLIC HEARINGS
John Poorman distributed an invitation to members to
attend NYSDOT’s Transportation Roundtable in Albany on February 15th. Nine roundtable sessions will be held
across the state. The theme of the
February 15th roundtable is Energy and the Environment. CDTC staff will present a local perspective
on the theme. Public comment will be
limited to three minutes per speaker, but written comments will also be accepted. Members are encouraged to attend.
STATUS OF PLANNING ACTIVITIES
The status was skipped in interest of ending this
meeting by noon.
OTHER
CDTC’s four year certification is scheduled for
mid-April. A first CDTC Newsletter will
be developed by April 1st.
Reviewers during the last certification requested that CDTC
develop a newsletter. The newsletter
will be available in both hard copy and electronic format.
There being no other business, the meeting was adjourned
at 12:10 p.m. There is a Policy
Board meeting scheduled for March 6th. The April Planning Committee meeting will be
held on April 2nd.
Respectfully submitted,
John P. Poorman
Secretary