CDTC's New Visions plan has
positively changed the Capital District.
Since its adoption in March 1997, the actions of many parties to
incorporate the plan's principles and strategies into programs and projects
have produced commendable results. The
vast majority of short-range recommendations in the New Visions plan had been implemented in part or in whole by the
time CDTC adopted an updated New Visions
2021 plan in October 2000. The plan
was updated through the New Visions 2025 Amendment in August 2004.
CDTC's Transportation Improvement Program (
Today,
it is widely accepted across the Capital District that transportation
investments can add significantly to community quality of life; that transit,
bike, pedestrian, goods movement and aesthetic features are equally as
important as motor vehicle accommodation in highway design; that technology can
be used to assist the traveler; and that ensuring economic and environmental
health is an important objective of the transportation system. In 1997, these were bold assertions by the
members of CDTC.
As
with the 1997 plan, full implementation of the current New Visions 2025 plan means steady progress with physical and
technological improvements to the region's transportation system, coupled with
significant land use and demand management actions that dampen the rate of
travel growth by one-third to one-half that anticipated as the trend growth in
the mid-1990's. The plan focuses on
managing and redesigning existing facilities, services and ways of doing
business more than on physically expanding the system.
Critical
to the
CDTC recognizes that issues left unresolved in the existing New Visions 2025 plan require additional attention. Efforts to complete a New Visions 2030 plan have included substantial work by five working groups, addressing the following:
¨
The effects of alternative growth scenarios
¨ Expressway management issues
¨ “Big idea” and “big ticket” initiatives
¨ Larger-than-regional policy issues
¨ Enhanced local planning in a regional context.
A Quality Region Task Force is specifically directed at certain unresolved issues related to regional settlement patterns and their relationship to quality of life and "visionary" transportation investments. A Finance Task Force will review the funding needs of CDTC's plan.
An objective of the CDTC
¨
Transportation Service
·
Maintain or
improve overall service quality from current conditions.
·
Enhance the
quality of life in the region.
¨
Resource Requirements
·
Reduce the
per-capita resource requirements related to provision, operation, use and
mitigation of the impacts of the transportation system from current per capita
costs.
·
Reduce the
per capita cost of accidents.
¨
External Effects
·
Build strong
urban, suburban and rural communities.
·
Knit them
together into a cohesive metropolitan area.
·
Support
economic and social interactions that accommodate population, household,
employment and commercial and industrial growth while improving environmental
quality and enhancing the natural and built environment.
The
New Visions plan goes further than
stating these broad goals: Programming principles and a budget that calls for
"comparable progress" across multiple project types is stated. The planning and programming principles are
organized under four broad themes:
1. Preserve and Manage. CDTC's highest priority is preserving and managing existing investment in the region's transportation system. Specific policies direct investment based on function and need; the priority for improved design and condition of major facilities should not depend on facility ownership.
2. Develop the Region's Potential. The Capital Region is a single economic unit containing a rich heritage, historic communities that cannot be replicated elsewhere, vibrant suburban areas, abundant open space and recreational opportunities, great natural resources and a highly educated work force. This region can grow into a uniquely attractive, vibrant and diverse metropolitan area. CDTC will consider community development and regional development plans as key factors in making transportation investment decisions.
3. Link Transportation and Land Use. Local land use decisions impact the function of the transportation system -- and vice versa. This relationship is paramount to all transportation planning and programming decisions. Achieving the plan's goals is as much dependent upon achieving unprecedented success in the land use area as it is on improving the transportation system.
4. Plan and Build for All Modes. Transportation planning and project design need to consider and accommodate more than cars. Pedestrians, bicyclists, delivery vehicles, long-distance trucks, rail crossings and intermodal terminal access are among the modes and modal considerations elevated by the plan.
The
principles state when and how CDTC believes transportation investment is
warranted, and when it believes such investment is not warranted. New
Visions budgetary guidance is stated as follows:
1. CDTC
desires full implementation of all plan elements.
For example, reducing the percentage of deficient bridges to 20% (one element of the plan) and improving bike and pedestrian accommodations on a priority network (another element) are both important and complete implementation success is desired for both.
2. Under
constrained budgets, preserving the existing transportation system has a higher
priority than making improvements or additions.
CDTC's existing principles and the New
Visions effort have repeatedly emphasized the need to maintain what we
currently have as a priority.
3. Even
under constrained budgets, making some degree of progress with improvements is
essential.
It is realistic and appropriate to assume that some amount of highway or bridge improvement, bike accommodation or access management redesign will be included in CDTC's and members' action agendas -- even if budgets are reduced from historic levels.
4. Availability
of funds dedicated to a particular mode, system or purpose frees up
"flexible" funds.
Sources with a tightly defined list of eligible purposes are a reality. These benefit specific purposes directly, and other purposes indirectly. Practically speaking, if CDTA receives a discretionary Section 5309 capital grant for bus replacement, or if State Dedicated Funds for state highway projects are increased, this increase reduces the load on other, flexible fund sources.
5. Priority
for the use of flexible funds is not to be based on ownership.
This statement emphasizes CDTC's historic
perspective, on funding, reaffirmed through the New Visions effort -- funding availability and project design
should be based on function and location, not on issues of jurisdiction.
Based on these
principles, CDTC's approach to
1.
Flexible
funds can be broadly targeted to specific project categories based on relative
funding need -- after accounting for the availability of dedicated funds and
after assigning extra weight to the funding requirements of preserving the
existing system; and,
2.
Project
priority within a project category can be determined based on need, cost
effectiveness, urgency and other factors.
The budgets for various
project types established in New Visions
were used explicitly as a reference in assessing
The New Visions budgets were particularly valuable in selecting a large
number of new projects in developing the 1997-02
For the 2003-08
The 2005-10
¨ Highway Rehab and Reconstruction (priority
system)
¨ Bridge Rehab and Reconstruction
¨ ITS capital
¨ ITS operating
¨ Travel Demand Management (TDM)
¨ Supplemental bike and pedestrian accommodations
Each of these funding categories was
under-represented in the 2003-08 funding distribution; focusing new projects in
these categories helps move the 2005-10
In addition to the
direct budgetary link between the New
Visions plan and the
New Visions budgets include all fund sources (federal, state and local) over twenty
years.
"Supplemental
Actions" includes stand-alone bicycle and pedestrian accommodations,
safety improvements, and goods movement actions, beyond those improvements
incorporated into other projects. Using
the federal-aid program to fund these types of projects is a major factor in
the achievement of a high degree of correlation between the long range budget
targets and the short-range capital program.