Draft Memorandum for the Record
Boston Region MPO Congestion Management Committee Meeting
September 6th, 2012 Meeting
11:30 AM – 01:00 PM, State Transportation Building, Conference Rooms 2&3, 10 Park Plaza, Boston
Ryan Hicks summarized the CMP-related elements of Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act. (MAP-21).The required 8 steps of the CMP process under SAFETEA-LU will remain the same under MAP-21. (For more information, refer to the attached handout for MAP-21 Highlights Related to the CMP.)
A question and answer period followed. Members asked if there was increased funding in this bill. Funding for this bill is the same as in SAFETEA-LU, adjusted to inflation.
During the meeting in June, members had asked that staff present to the committee the MPO visions and policies for the Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP) in order to finalize the CM Committee mission. The three MPO visions that relate the closest to the CMP are:
System Preservation, Modernization, and Efficiency Policies. –Intelligent Transportation systems (ITS) and Transportation System management (TSM) solutions can provide congestion, delay, and safety improvements in order to avoid highway expansion. The benefit to cost ratios of these improvements can be huge and no expansion would be needed. New signal equipment and traffic signal retimings are effective strategies and can improve congestion and mobility through intersections.
Mobility – bottlenecks may lead to secondary accidents and more bottlenecks. The policies trickle down from CMP to UPWP.
Safety- Addressing high crash locations with appropriate improvements and incident management promote safety, a goal of the CMP. Identifying and clearing incidents prevents non-recurring congestion. Safety improvements can reduce severity rather than number of crashes.
Staff developed the following CM Committee mission statement based on the above three visions:
“Support sustainable growth
in economic activity, sustain livability in the region, prevent the increase in
congestion, and improve mobility, efficiency, and safety for people, goods, and
services by encouraging programs that reduce single occupant vehicle use,
including transportation systems management and operations, travel demand
management, and technology.”
David Koses mentioned that Newton is starting to
consider road diets and there might be a possible tradeoff between road-diets
and vehicular congestion.
Efi mentioned that most road diets are implemented in
corridors between intersections, while most congestion occurs at intersections.
Anne mentioned that the visions and policies might need
some revisions to agree with the performance measures.
Lourenço stated that we need to think about what we need to do as a Committee. One option is to look into developing TIP programs to fund low-cost improvements with high return in investment for municipally- and MassDOT –owned roadways that staff have identified in UPWP (Unified Planning Work Program) studies.
Efi mentioned that about 50% of all studies
move to some type of implementation, design, Environmental documents, or
construction. The main reason that some projects don’t move for implementation
is that the towns don’t have design and construction money available.
Anne suggested that maybe the committee could
prioritize projects based on certain criteria.
One committee member made the comment that we
have to cover other needs with TIP projects in addition to the CMP.
Efi mentioned that CMP-implemented projects
would be about short term improvement such as retiming signals, installing
markings and signs. Most projects are well under $1 million. There could be a
program created for small projects.
Lourenço mentioned that the committee can
potentially develop a program that supports construction of smaller and medium
projects to speed up implementation. What are the road blocks to getting
projects implemented for towns?
Lourenço then mentioned that another way is to get funding
from several different sources. –(State, Federal, CMAQ, etc.) – if funding is pulled from several sources, then funding
will add up to be enough to fund a project.
Lourenço – Asked what about conclusions and proposals following discussion above.
Efi mentioned that maintaining a CMP is a
requirement, and, as part of that, we have to implement what we study.
For next meeting, staff needs to find out what were the recent appropriations of the clean air mobility program. Also, staff needs to review if recent/current study recommendations qualify for clean air and mobility program or CMAQ funds. There can be a possible discussion/ Presentation on CMAQ – Could MassDOT or someone from the CMAQ committee come and present? Finally, explore how a potential program could be managed and implemented.
Next meeting to be announced
|
Members |
Representatives
and Alternates |
|
At-Large City (City of Everett) |
James Errickson |
|
At-Large City (City of Newton) |
David Koses |
|
At-Large Town (Town of Lexington) |
Richard Canale |
|
Massachusetts Port Authority |
Lourenço Dantas |
|
Other
Attendees |
Affiliation |
|
David Kucharsky |
MassCommute |
|
Monica Tibbits |
128 Business Council/ RTAC |
|
MPO
Staff/Central Transportation Planning Staff |
|
Hiral Gandhi |
|
Ryan Hicks |
|
Anne McGahan |
|
Efi Pagitsas |
|
Scott Peterson |
|
Pam Wolfe |