Capital District January 2004
Transportation Committee
Working Group
(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.
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
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
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.