Defenders' Experts
Transportation Planning Products
Transportation planners are nothing if not prolific. In maintaining that “continuous” and “comprehensive” mantra, they have a product output that would put Stephen King to shame. And good news—even though the planning process is different in each state, the products of planning remain consistent across the board.
At the metropolitan level, MPOs are required to develop the following:
Long-Range Transportation Plan (LTRP) – A long-term vision for the area, covering a planning horizon of at least 20 years.
Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) – A short-term program (about five years) based on the long-range transportation plan and designed to serve the area’s goals, using spending, regulating, operating, management, and financial tools.
Congestion Management System – Areas with populations over 200,000 are called transportation management areas (TMA) and are required to develop strategies to reduce congestion and increase mobility. In air-quality non-attainment areas, projects that increase capacity for single occupancy vehicles (by adding new roads or widening existing ones) must conform with the area’s Congestion Management System.
Unified Planning Work Program (UPWP) – TMAs are required to cooperate with the state and the local transit operator to develop a unified planning work program that discusses and documents planning activities.
At the state level, state transportation agency planning offices produce the following:
Long-Range Transportation Plan (LRTP) – A long-term vision for the state, covering a planning horizon of at least 20 years.
Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) – A short-term program for the state that incorporates and integrates the MPO plans. Developed on at least a two-year cycle, these programs contain individual transportation improvements and projects. All federally funded projects must be part of an improvement program to be implemented, and STIPs often have project cost estimates.
State Implementation Plan (SIP) – As required by the Clean Air Act, this plan outlines measures the state will take to meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standards including measures to reduce automobile emissions that contribute to smog.
Strategic Highway Safety Plan – A statewide-coordinated safety plan that provides a comprehensive framework, and specific goals and objectives, for reducing highway fatalities and serious injuries on all public roads. This statewide document includes input from public and private safety stakeholders. The safety plan is a data-driven, four to five year comprehensive plan that integrates the four E’s—engineering, education, enforcement and emergency medical services. The plan establishes statewide goals, objectives and key emphasis areas developed in consultation with federal, state, local and private sector safety stakeholders.
Unlike metropolitan transportation improvement programs and long-range plans, statewide long-range transportation plans do not have a requirement to be financially constrained; that is, to demonstrate the likelihood that funds will be available to cover all proposed projects.
Types of Long-range Transportation Plans
Congress mandated the long-range transportation plan, but left plenty of wiggle room for states and MPOs to approach the process in their own ways. Some plans are presented in a big picture, vision-based fashion but fall short of explaining how to get there. Other plans are more needs-based, grounded in reality with policies, strategies and investments to meet those needs. The Volpe National Transportation Systems Center evaluated all the statewide long-range transportation plans in 2002 and found “a great diversity in approach, content and emphasis. Some plans are updated frequently, while others remain in effect from the early years of ISTEA. There is a great potential for these plans to continue to evolve into increasingly valuable components of the statewide planning process, and to become vital sources of information for decision-making.”
Project Selection
What does planning have to do with project selection? That’s the $64 question. The planning process is not the decision making process. If done well, it can provide a framework for informed decision-making, but ultimately those elected or appointed to make decisions will make the call. Every transportation planner has a story about good plans being scuttled by some ill-advised, hair-brained proposal that slipped into the process by means of an earmark or other political maneuvering.
Without a doubt, the long range and short range plans are wildly different with vastly different processes and purposes. They both may have opportunities for public input, but what happens in between remains a mystery to many. In theory, the TIP/STIP is supposed to reflect the LRTP, but somewhere between the lofty, larger than life LRTP and the detailed, bottom line TIP/STIP, we can lose our place. That’s why it is important for you to track all the planning activities in your state or area of interest. Below are two examples of the project selection or programming process at the state level.
Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) describes its project selection process in five steps: identify needs, build a proposal (funding), begin planning, project development and construction. Public involvement doesn’t kick in until project development, long after project selection, which rests with the commission and local officials.
Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) district engineers meet with MPOs once a year to develop a list of candidate projects for submission to a selection committee. Projects go through scoping (not NEPA scoping) to flesh out the project details such as traffic, safety considerations and cost. Using a set annual budget, projects are selected up to that budget amount. The State Transportation Board conducts three public hearings on the draft five-year construction program. The STIP is culled from that five-year program, including the federally funded projects, local TIPs FLHP and Bureau of Indian Affairs projects.
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