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A Guidebook for Corridor-Based Statewide Transportation Planning (2010)

Chapter: Section 2 - Statewide Corridor Planning

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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Statewide Corridor Planning." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Guidebook for Corridor-Based Statewide Transportation Planning. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14395.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Statewide Corridor Planning." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Guidebook for Corridor-Based Statewide Transportation Planning. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14395.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Statewide Corridor Planning." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Guidebook for Corridor-Based Statewide Transportation Planning. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14395.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Statewide Corridor Planning." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Guidebook for Corridor-Based Statewide Transportation Planning. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14395.
×
Page 10
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Statewide Corridor Planning." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Guidebook for Corridor-Based Statewide Transportation Planning. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14395.
×
Page 11
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Statewide Corridor Planning." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Guidebook for Corridor-Based Statewide Transportation Planning. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14395.
×
Page 12
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Statewide Corridor Planning." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Guidebook for Corridor-Based Statewide Transportation Planning. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14395.
×
Page 13
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Statewide Corridor Planning." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Guidebook for Corridor-Based Statewide Transportation Planning. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14395.
×
Page 14

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An SWCP process represents a change in the way many states evaluate and invest in their transportation system. A corridor planning approach is a departure from a systems-wide or project-based approach used by many states. This section discusses why a state DOT might wish to use the SWCP approach, as well as some of the characteristics of such an approach. Why Use an SWCP Process? The SWCP approach places a greater focus on system preservation for the most significant transportation corridors and on modes and facilities of statewide and/or regional significance. There are obvious perceived differences in how multimodal issues should be addressed as part of any statewide transportation planning process, depending on factors such as • Level of multimodal activity, • Urban versus rural issues, • Population density, • Financial resource, • Overall state political priorities, and • Perceived divisions between public- and private-sector responsibilities. However, in all states, an SWCP process can help place emphasis on coordinating multimodal improvements and strategies in state-significant corridors rather than addressing individual modal needs separately at a more abstract level. Through the multimodal SWCP process, emphasis is given to those facilities and services that support interregional, interstate, and international trips; it also gives priority to the affordable transportation investments and strategies, regardless of mode, that would have the greatest positive impact on the state’s economy and quality of life. The results of the national survey and the case studies conducted for this research project indicate that SWCP has been adopted for a variety of reasons. Some of these relate not only to obtaining more detailed information on the needs and related strategies for improving trans- portation system performance, but also on linking better transportation investments and strategies with other state goals related to such topics as economic development, international trade and freight movement, environmental quality, and statewide connectivity. From the research survey and case studies, the following benefits were provided by state DOTs to describe advantages that had been derived from the SWCP process over a systems-wide or project-based process: • Corridors provide a more direct connection between the movement of people and goods and state-significant economic activity. 7 S E C T I O N 2 Statewide Corridor Planning

• Corridors provide the transportation agency with an ability to more closely examine the trade-offs among different modes of transportation for people and goods movement. • Corridors provide a higher precision in monitoring the performance of transportation facilities and services. • Corridor-level analysis encourages a more complete investigation of non-transportation strategies, such as land use planning and zoning, for addressing transportation challenges. • Corridor studies can provide more detailed project information including better cost estimates (compared with system-level cost estimates) when considering advancing projects to the fiscally constrained STIP. • Corridors, especially trade corridors, handle significant amounts of through trips in many states and, thus, provide a better focus for multi-state efforts at improving transportation capabilities across state boundaries. • Corridor planning is familiar to planning agencies and other planning participants since the approach has been used in both rural and metropolitan areas for many years, so the process is already well understood and can therefore be more easily accepted when adopting an SWCP approach. • Because corridor studies provide more focus on localized problems, a corridor-level analysis can better promote the active engagement of local officials and stakeholders and a greater opportunity for addressing local issues, needs, plans, actions, and impacts. 8 A Guidebook for Corridor-Based Statewide Transportation Planning Purpose of SWCP Approaches in Selected States Michigan: Corridors of significance delineate where the most critical movements of goods and people occur. The purpose of the plan is to create a statewide strategic multimodal plan for an intelligent, inclusive, integrated, and inter- national transportation system that is socially, environmentally, and economically responsible. A high-level corridor approach is being used as a blueprint to talk about the vision and priorities for program development and investments. Minnesota: The goal of the Interregional Corridor System is to enhance the economic vitality of the state by providing safe, timely, and efficient movement of goods and people. The corridors tie the state together by connecting people with jobs, distributors with manufacturers, shoppers with retailers and tourists with recreational opportunities. Pennsylvania: PennDOT has identified a Core Pennsylvania Transportation System defined as “an integrated system made up of modal facilities that are of the highest importance for moving people and goods between regions within Pennsylvania, as well as between the Commonwealth and other states and nations.” Idaho: Corridor plans are designed to define the purpose of recommended improvements and strategies and prepare projects for entry into the STIP or other implementation strategies. Florida: Corridors are identified in Florida based on their contribution to mobility and connectivity, economic competitiveness, community livability, and environmental stewardship. Source: State DOT transportation plan documents, web sites, and/or NCHRP Project 8-58 research survey responses, December 2008.

SWCP Framework A diagram of the conceptual framework for SWCP and for the planning guidance that follows is shown in Figure 1. This framework describes the key steps that are part of a corridor-based approach to statewide transportation planning. Note that the key contributions of this guidance to the overall planning framework occur at the beginning and end of the process. Although there are key actions that must be done to ensure consistency of results on a statewide basis, the steps in the middle of Figure 1 constitute nothing more than a good corridor planning analysis. The major steps that are recommended for undertaking a successful SWCP process include 1. Establish organizing principles and institutional structure. 2. Establish a corridor network. 3. Identify study corridors. 4. Conduct corridor studies (elements related to the SWCP approach): – Establish organizing principles and institutional structure, – Identification of vision, goals and performance measures, – Problem identification, – Alternatives identification and analysis, – Project and corridor evaluation, and – Project and corridor investment program. 5. Identify statewide investment program and system management strategy. Statewide Corridor Planning 9 Figure 1. Conceptual framework for a statewide corridor-based transportation investment program.

Appendix A illustrates these steps with examples from transportation planning agencies that have utilized some aspect of the SWCP approach to statewide transportation planning. Each example represents a “best practice” for that particular step, so all examples in combination present a composite illustration of how a particular state DOT could undertake statewide cor- ridor planning. The following sections provide a brief description of each of these steps. Establish Organizing Principles and Institutional Structure The SWCP approach to statewide transportation planning relies on corridor planning activities occurring in different parts of the state, but some actions may happen at the same time and some at different times. Therefore, it is important that state DOTs provide a structure and guidance for the planning activities that form the basis for the development of a state investment program and a system management strategy. This initial “organizing” step will have to deal with such questions as • How can information generated from individual corridor analyses be consolidated to develop a comprehensive statewide investment program and action plan? • How can broader state goals and policies be incorporated into the SWCP approach to provide consistency across all of the corridor studies? • What types of public and stakeholder involvement strategies are appropriate at different steps in the process? • How does one provide consistency in planning goals and objectives when agency or political leadership changes? • How can corridor and NEPA planning efforts be integrated into both the SWCP process and long-range plan updates? 10 A Guidebook for Corridor-Based Statewide Transportation Planning Involvement of Non-Metropolitan Officials in Transportation Planning “The involvement of local officials should be one of the major elements in the state transportation agency’s planning and programming process. Their input can provide important information, such as local knowledge about future economic development activities or a different perspective on needs, priorities, evaluation criteria, and potential impacts. Through this non-metropolitan local consultation process, both the state transportation agency and the local and regional bodies can make better decisions and, therefore, provide better service to their citizens. State transportation officials can serve as catalysts for envisioning, organizing, and sustaining a proactive and credible non-metropolitan local consultation process that provides opportunities for continuing active and meaningful input into state transportation decisionmaking on planning, projects, programs, and policies. The primary purpose of the non-metropolitan local consultation process is to engender active involvement by local elected and appointed officials in providing meaningful input that will affect state transportation decisions on plans, projects, policies, and programs that have an impact on the areas and constituents that they serve.” Source: AASHTO, Non-Metropolitan Local Consultation Process: A Self-Assessment Tool to States, Washington, DC (2006).

• How can the relationship among SWCP and planning efforts by all appropriate agencies be coordinated, such as local governments, rural planning organizations (RPOs), MPOs, transit agencies, tribal governments, and federal land management agencies? • How can the SWCP process help stakeholders and decisionmakers think in terms of corridors (which is somewhat conceptual) instead of focusing on individual projects? • How does one ensure that the information and findings from individual corridor studies are consistent, replicable, and comparable? • How does one distinguish between intra-state, interstate, and international corridors? • Assuming that all of the corridor studies do not start and end at the same time, how can an internally consistent and comprehensive statewide transportation plan be developed? • Are legislative, regulatory, or policy initiatives needed to enable, support, or enhance plan development? Providing answers to these questions is important for the development of a successful SWCP process. Establish A Corridor Network The SWCP framework begins with an effort to identify candidate corridors that will serve as the source for potential investment opportunities. This process will likely be based on both quan- titative and subjective criteria—that is, crucial corridors will be defined by the periodic collec- tion and analysis of condition and performance data, the estimation of travel flows and expected future travel demands, or the function the corridors serve in broader policy perspective. In many cases, a statewide strategic transportation network is identified as the target of state investment, so being on this network constitutes one of the most important criteria for a potential corridor study. Identify Study Corridors In the examples of corridor-based planning found in practice, the approach toward corridor identification has been based largely on geographical significance, transportation classification or function, thresholds of volume or throughput, and sometimes a higher-level analysis of key performance measures. Performance measures are related to such things as safety; travel delay or other measures of corridor performance (both today and in the future); physical condition; operations efficiency; and traffic volumes or trips, such as average daily traffic, commodity flows, or passenger volumes. One of the more interesting aspects of this step in the SWCP framework is the degree to which corridors are focused on intercity travel and corridors in metropolitan areas. The “best practice” examples of a statewide corridor-based planning process combine both intercity and metropolitan corridors into a comprehensive statewide perspective of transportation needs. In California, for example, Caltrans has identified intercity corridors and has also worked with metropolitan and regional planning organizations to identify the most crucial corridor needs within the metropolitan area. The best example is the corridor-based planning approach in the Bay Area where both Caltrans and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission have partnered to examine several transportation corridors that are potential candidates for state and regional investment. If the corridor identification process is to include corridors in metro- politan areas, it requires close coordination and collaboration among the state DOT and the respective MPOs. The more sophisticated corridor-based planning processes will incorporate periodic or real-time monitoring capabilities into the data collection efforts of the relevant agencies. For example, the Bay Area example mentioned above has relied on real-time monitoring of facility speeds, a Statewide Corridor Planning 11

periodic assessment of the impacts of incidents and crashes on facility performance, and the identification of freeway bottleneck points. An important characteristic of this initial step in the SWCP process is that individual corridors are likely to be identified and proceed into more detailed analysis at different times (thereby creating a challenge in later steps where priorities among corridors are to be determined). It is highly unlikely that corridor studies will all begin simultaneously, and certainly they will not finish at the same time. Thus, at any given point in the planning process, one could have some corridor studies underway, others in the early stages of being identified, and still others in the final stages of completion. This emphasizes the need for periodic monitoring of the performance and condition of corridor transportation facilities. To the extent that the corridor approach is tied to other policy objectives (such as economic development), this on-going corridor identification process also needs to monitor the changing characteristics of the contextual factors within which the corridor planning process occurs. In the case of economic development, this would suggest a periodic assessment of the changing economic opportunities afforded the state and the corresponding importance of transportation infrastructure to supporting this policy goal. Conduct Corridor Studies Once potential corridors are identified, a corridor planning process will occur based on a statewide template applied to each corridor to ensure consistency in the approach and infor- mation produced. As noted earlier, this Guidebook will not provide detailed guidance on the individual steps that constitute good corridor planning. However, there are certain character- istics of the SWCP framework that are important to consider. Each of the individual steps in corridor planning shown in Figure 1—vision, goals, and performance measure identification; problem identification; alternatives identification and analysis; project and corridor evaluation; and project and corridor investment program recommendations—would likely have some common elements that would be consistent across all corridor planning efforts. These individual steps are described here. Vision, Goals, and Performance Measure Identification When the results of one corridor study must be compared with those of another, it is important that some common planning goals and a set of common performance evaluation criteria be used to ensure a consistent evaluation at the end of the process. This is not to say that each corridor study could not have individual evaluation criteria that are specific to that corridor, but some subset of these criteria should be common across all corridors. It is likely that the common vision, goals, and performance measures for a corridor study will closely relate to statewide transportation planning goals as determined through the planning process. Problem Identification The rationale for conducting individual corridor analyses in the first place is to provide specific attention to the needs and issues in a particular corridor. Thus, it might not seem apparent how statewide concerns could be incorporated into this corridor planning step. However, one could envision certain types of problems that a state DOT would want to examine in all corridor studies. It may be desirable not only to have common evaluation parameters for proposed projects and strategies at the end of the process, but also because similar types of problem identification might be necessary due to the source of funding for solving the problems. For example, a state DOT could 12 A Guidebook for Corridor-Based Statewide Transportation Planning

require that problems associated with safety, intermodal freight movement, access to intermodal facilities, traffic operations, capacity, intelligent transportation system (ITS) opportunities, and access management be explicitly considered in the corridor studies, while implementation projects or strategies to address some of these issues might have funds available from dedicated sources with specific selection criteria. There are a variety of levels for conducting corridor analyses as part of a statewide transportation planning process, ranging from major corridor studies to lower levels of analysis. To provide additional guidance, Appendix B identifies and discusses three levels of effort of analysis. Alternatives Identification and Analysis Similar to problem identification, certain types of alternatives and analysis tools might be applied to provide consistent and comparable results among the corridor studies. Additional guidance on analysis issues and methods are included in Appendix B and Appendix C. References to documents and websites with information on different analysis tools that can be used in a corridor study are provided at the end of this Guidebook. Project and Corridor Evaluation The purpose of any evaluation process is to produce information that can be used by decision- makers to select the most feasible, most performance-effective, and/or most cost-effective set of projects and strategies. The SWCP approach to statewide planning depends on having some common evaluation measures as well as evaluation methods that can be used to compare candidate projects across studies. For example, the state DOT could require the use of benefit/cost analysis as a means of providing a dimensionless measure of the respective values of candidate projects. As another example, if highway congestion is an important issue, state guidance could require that congestion measures relating to the extent, duration, and magnitude of congestion be considered in each corridor study. Similar to the corridor performance measures, each corridor analysis could also have corridor-specific evaluation criteria that have been identified through the public participation and resource agency coordination process. During the research project, state DOTs identified some specific challenges in addressing corridor needs, impacts, and alternatives. For that reason, additional information is included in Appendices D, E, and F on the issues of public transportation, freight movement, and economic development, respectively. Identify Statewide Investment Program and System Management Strategy The final step in the SWCP approach is to use the results of individual corridor studies as input to the development of a statewide transportation plan, an STIP, and potentially a system management strategy. As in any type of planning, this final step usually considers not only technical information and public input, but also political considerations relating to such things as geographic equity, state and regional economic development needs, other statewide issues and goals, and long-standing project-specific promises. Such factors are to be expected in what is essentially a public investment decisionmaking process. However, information produced by corridor plans are often better vetted through the local political process than more global plans produced on a state-level basis. In addition, corridor plans usually provide more specific project-level information that can be used as direct input into the project prioritization and STIP process. Statewide Corridor Planning 13

Any addition to potential projects, low-investment or “non-investment” strategies could also be recommended for better management of the existing transportation system, such as travel demand management, land use planning and zoning, and congestion pricing. Such strategies could be included in the statewide transportation plan as tools and actions that the state DOT and others could adopt for enhancing the performance of the state transportation system. Development of Technical Guidance Section 3 of this Guidebook presents a “checklist” matrix of the steps and tasks for undertaking an SWCP process, along with a discussion of the reason and some further explanation of the issues for each task. 14 A Guidebook for Corridor-Based Statewide Transportation Planning Linkage Between Corridor Planning and the NEPA Process Federal planning regulations provide the option to use a “corridor or subarea study” as a tool for linking planning and NEPA. The basic features of a corridor or subarea study are defined in the regulations. These include the following: A corridor or subarea study is prepared by a state DOT, MPO, and/or transit opera- tor as part of the statewide or metropolitan planning process. The corridor or sub- area study itself is not a process for federal agency decisionmaking and therefore does not require NEPA review. A corridor or subarea study can be used to produce a wide range of analyses or decisions for adoption in the NEPA process for an individual project. These include • Purpose and need or goals and objective statement(s); • General travel corridor and/or general mode(s) definition (e.g., highway, transit, or a highway/transit combination); • Preliminary screening of alternatives and elimination of unreasonable alternatives; • Basic description of the environmental setting; and/or • Preliminary identification of environmental impacts and environmental mitigation. The regulations define criteria that a federal agency must consider in deciding whether to adopt planning-level analyses or decisions in the NEPA process. These include • Involvement of interested state, local, tribal, and federal agencies; • Public review; • Reasonable opportunity to comment during the statewide or metropolitan transportation planning process and development of the corridor or subarea planning study; • Documentation of relevant decisions in a form that is identifiable and available for review during the NEPA scoping process and can be appended to or refer- enced in the NEPA document; and • The review of the FHWA and the FTA, as appropriate. Source: AASHTO, Practitioner’s Handbook 10: Using the Transportation Planning Process to Support the NEPA Process, Washington, DC (2008).

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TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 661: A Guidebook for Corridor-Based Statewide Transportation Planning explores a template for corridor planning designed to help states to better understand the implications of transportation decisions on mobility, communities, economic development, and environmental stewardship.

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