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

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

4The primary sections of the Guidebook are as follows: • Section 1 presents the Guidebook’s organization, background, purpose, and overview. • Section 2 discusses the reasons why statewide corridor planning (SWCP) is an approach that has proven useful to transportation planners, presents the rationale and reasoning for using an SWCP approach toward transportation planning, offers a framework for conducting SWCP as an organizing concept for the development of technical guidance. • Section 3 provides technical guidance on the activities and actions that transportation planners can follow to develop an SWCP approach to statewide transportation planning. • Section 4 applies this guidance in a hypothetical state to illustrate the substance and process of conducting SWCP. • Section 5 presents a list of useful references for practitioners. The following information is included in the appendices: • Appendix A presents examples from state DOTs that describe how individual states have implemented key steps of the SWCP process. • Appendix B and Appendix C present more detailed guidance on the levels of corridor analysis and analytical tools that can be used in the SWCP process. • Appendices D, E, and F present additional guidance on pubic transit, freight transportation, and economic development, respectively. These three topics were identified as challenges by state DOTs through the surveys and case studies undertaken during the research project, as well as input received during the review of the Guidebook. Background Transportation planning provides important information to those making decisions on improving transportation system performance. Before the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991 made statewide, long-range multimodal transportation planning a federal requirement, statewide transportation planning was undertaken by many states for a variety of reasons. Some of the early statewide planning efforts were aimed at producing a list of projects that best met the transportation needs of the state. Other efforts were required by state law, with many of these focusing not only on transportation needs, but also on the expected impacts on the environment, economic development, tourism and the myriad other issues that are influenced by transportation system performance. Still others could be best described as policy statements that established overall direction for transportation investment, but did not identify specific projects. Just as there are many reasons for undertaking a transportation planning process today, including a federally legislated mandate, so too are there many different ways of producing the S E C T I O N 1 Guidebook Organization and Purpose

statewide transportation plan. Some states prepare a policy-based statewide transportation plan, while others prepare a project-based plan that is compatible with projected funding. Some states update their statewide plans with a well-defined continuous planning effort every 2 to 4 years, while others update only when it is required by federal law. Some statewide transportation plans are developed almost exclusively by state transportation agencies. Others rely heavily on regional planning agencies to identify individual projects and strategies that are most relevant in their particular jurisdiction, which are, in turn, considered by the state and compiled into a statewide strategy for transportation actions or investment. Over the past 10 to 15 years, another model for conducting multimodal statewide transportation planning has been evolving. This model, based on an SWCP approach, relies on the identification of significant state transportation corridors and the results of individual corridor plans to provide a more detailed and comprehensive perspective on the transportation needs in corridors that are designated as being of significance to the state. The statewide plans and programs are then developed based on the aggregated results of individual corridor analysis. Recognition of and authority for a corridor or sub-area planning approach to the statewide transportation planning process has been included in federal regulations under 23 CFR 450.212. Purpose The Guidebook’s purpose is to guide transportation decisionmakers, agency managers, and transportation planners on how to conduct a statewide transportation planning process with a focus on corridors of regional, statewide, or interstate significance. This guidebook does not provide guidance on how to conduct corridor studies. The reader is referred to several other reports and technical guidance that have been produced on this particular topic—for example: • NCHRP Report 404: Innovative Practices for Multimodal Transportation Planning for Freight and Passengers (1998) and • NCHRP Report 435, Guidebook for Transportation Corridor Studies: A Process for Effective Decision-Making (1999). It is assumed that planning practitioners are familiar with the basic approach to developing individual corridor plans. The primary intent of this guidebook is to describe a strategic approach for using the results of corridor plans in developing a statewide transportation plan. Overview The Guidebook was developed using information obtained from a literature review and from a national survey and case studies of state DOTs and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) with a corridor-based transportation systems approach to long-range planning. The guidebook provides recommendations on steps for the implementation of an SWCP process in a state. According to state DOTs that develop a corridor-based statewide transportation plan, SWCP provides the following advantages over a systems-wide or project-based planning process: • More direct connection between the movement of people and goods and state-significant economic activity; • Better analysis of trade-offs among different modes of transportation; • Higher precision in monitoring transportation system performance; • More complete investigation of non-transportation strategies; Guidebook Organization and Purpose 5

• Better cost estimates for the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP); • Institutionalized consideration of major multi-state corridors; • A process that is already familiar to planning partners; and • More effective involvement of local officials and other stakeholders. The major steps recommended for a successful SWCP process include the following: 1. Establish organizing principles and institutional structure. 2. Establish a corridor network. 3. Identify study corridors. 4. Conduct corridor studies or analysis: – 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 strategies. Technical guidance for each of these steps is provided in Section 3, and application of the technical guidance is illustrated in Section 4 for the hypothetical state of South Orange. Some key decisions include the selection of significant corridors, the level of detail that will be provided in the corridor analysis, and the application of the corridor to the identification and prioritization of the final recommendations. For example, a cursory analysis could be used to define corridors or to identify categories of transportation problems, or a state DOT could use more detailed methods—whether for the criteria to identify corridors, corridor studies to identify needs, or the decisionmaking process to identify projects, strategies, or priorities. In any case, the concept of a statewide transportation planning process based on corridors is a useful way of incorporating a more detailed and structured foundation for the statewide transportation planning process and STIP process. 6 A Guidebook for Corridor-Based Statewide Transportation Planning