Many transportation projects in the Bay Area could be considered "good projects"—needed, wanted, even financially feasible—but should they receive scarce regional funds?
When there aren't enough dollars to go around for all the transportation needs in the Bay Area, money must be spent as effectively as possible. Determining which projects and programs will make it into Transportation 2030, previously known as the 2005 Regional Transportation Plan (RTP), will be done through an evaluation process, using goals, objectives and performance measures. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) recently adopted the measurable corridor objectives, performance measurement criteria, and project evaluation screening criteria that will be used to develop Transportation 2030, in accordance with legislation enacted last year (SB 1492- Perata).
Goals and objectives are general planning tools, while performance measures are more specific. For example, for a transportation goal of "mobility", an objective might be "to move more people while not increasing travel time". Performance measures would address the actual numbers of people to be moved and how quickly they could make their trips.
Performance measures for Transportation 2030 are different from performance measures used regularly by transit providers or Caltrans, because the plan makes projections into the future. While a transit provider may need to know how many riders are using a particular route and whether ridership is up or down, planners need to consider how the ridership will change in the future as the area develops or as employment centers shift. Transportation models can provide some of this information, including data based on transportation corridors, while taking the diverse nature of the region into account.
Transportation 2030 performance measures also need to function on a multi-modal basis, because funding, particularly at the federal level, is often allocated to a transportation system rather than just to transit or to roads. While it seems natural to look at the number of transit riders on a system as a performance measurement, that measurement works only for comparing transit to transit. Likewise, it is tempting to compare freeway projects to freeway projects, without assessing what really matters to the traveler, which is the speed and ease of travel, whether by transit or by freeway.
In a 1995 study for MTC on how to develop multi-modal performance measures, David Jones recommended " user-oriented performance measures which treat the transportation system as an inter-modal system which provides mobility for both people and goods." As MTC has incorporated performance measures into the RTP, they have been designed as multi-modal, user-oriented measures as much as possible. For example, safety is measured by the number of incidents over the past three years, regardless of mode.
Some measurements are easier to quantify than others. For example, there were six goals in the 2001 Regional Transportation Plan, one of which addressed "mobility of people and freight" and used measurements of travel time and accessibility. However, planners found it hard to define another goal, "community vitality", which then made it difficult to design measurements for the impact of transportation on community vitality. The performance measures that were finally chosen for that plan were based on the number of people and jobs within walking distance of transit, and the number of transit trips resulting from people walking to or from the transit stops.
For Transportation 2030, performance measures related to community vitality look at whether residents can use a range of modes to get to their daily activities in the community, whether a proposed project supports a community's development or redevelopment activities, and whether a project implements ABAG-MTC Smart Growth objectives. Unlike data on traffic volumes in 2025 or the likelihood of transit on-time performance, which can be obtained from MTC's transportation model, information on how a project meets community vitality performance measures will be qualitative and will usually come from the agency or person proposing the project for inclusion in the plan.
MTC will begin evaluating projects in a multi-step process beginning this fall, using the recently-adopted objectives and criteria to do both a project needs assessment and corridor benefits analysis. Members of the public, as well as transportation agencies, may submit projects for evaluation. In September, a submittal form will be available on MTC's web site, and as a paper version by request. Project submittals are due to MTC in mid-October. At that stage, MTC and the county Congestion Management Agencies (CMAs) will use the Project Evaluation Screening Criteria to determine which projects will be evaluated. As a basis for proposals, MTC will provide estimates of the funding available for new projects, as well as projections of 2025 conditions in the key transportation corridors based on the 2001 RTP transportation network and ABAG's Projections 2003.
Proposals which pass the screening will then move on to the full evaluation process, conducted November 2003 through March 2004. A project needs assessment will be done for each proposal, to determine how the project would help the region meet the projected needs of the transportation system in 2025.
The needs assessment would use the specific performance measurement criteria, which are based on the universal corridor objectives adopted for Transportation 2030:
Specific objectives for each corridor will also be developed for the RTP with input from the CMAs and the public. Projects will be grouped into three alternatives for analysis of the interactive effects of projects on the major travel corridors in the region; the regional travel demand model results will be used to evaluate corridor benefits measured on the basis of mobility, accessibility, and emissions and vehicle miles traveled.
By March 2004, MTC will summarize the results of the evaluations along with project cost information and review them with the CMAs and the project sponsors. In May 2004, the CMAs will present their final lists of projects recommended for inclusion in Transportation 2030. The lists must be "financially constrained"—money must be identified to pay for the projects and programs included—and should be accompanied by a description of how the lists of projects were shaped by the evaluation results.
MTC's objective is to blend project-level and corridor-level analysis for a wide range of project types, as required by the legislation. MTC developed the project needs assessment in order to allow evaluation of a wide range of project types on a consistent basis; this information will be supplemented by the results of the corridor benefits analysis, which will reflect performance. However, one participant in the committee which developed the measures, David Schonbrunn of the Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund, is critical of the focus on project needs. "The proposed measures say nothing about how a specific proposed project will perform in addressing the respective problem," he says. Schonbrunn also observes that the measures are based on the currently formulated goals for Transportation 2030, derived from the goals in the 2001 RTP; he feels these goals, and the performance measures, should be changed to reflect comments at the Transportation 2030 Summit in June and other input during the RTP process.
Some concern has also been heard from some of the CMAs, particularly those in counties that are planning tax measure renewals, about the schedule for sending in proposals for evaluation. Since countywide plans are still being prepared, and expenditure plans for ballot measures are still preliminary, projects may have to be prepared for evaluation and later withdrawn. CMAs are also apprehensive that they may not have county and regional data from ABAG in time to work them into their proposals. Meanwhile, MTC anticipates dealing with so many projects that it may restrict the evaluations to those over a certain dollar amount, such as $5 million.
The timetable cannot be allowed to slip, given the extensive nature of the analysis and evaluation which is proposed and the need to get evaluation results to the public and local decision makers in time for CMAs to develop the lists which are due in May 2004. However, it is possible that as the process moves forward, some revisions may be made to the performance measures themselves, although the goals and objectives would remain as is for this evaluation. If discussions this fall lead to new goals and objectives, they will provide a framework for evaluation for future updates.
While some adjustments may be necessary, the addition of performance measures to the regional transportation plan process will guarantee a level of review and evaluation for individual projects which goes well beyond what has been available in prior plans.
Leslie Stewart
For more information: Lisa Klein, MTC, 510-464-7832; lklein@mtc.ca.gov