Transportation 2030, the current revision of the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP), will become more "up close and personal" this fall. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) kicked off the plan review with a 450-attendee Transportation Summit in June. In the next few months the agency will be holding community meetings and forums with interest groups to tackle some of the tough questions about future transportation plans for the region.
Key issues discussed at the Summit and on the agenda for the smaller meetings include:
• How to create a plan that is a vision of what the region should be, not just a list of what can be done with funds already guaranteed to arrive. One option is to make the plan a "Big Tent" that goes beyond the financially constrained plan required for air quality and federal funds planning. The Big Tent would create a broader plan that also describes the rest of the vision, including related areas such as air quality and smart growth, and identifies some of the potential sources of funding for this larger network of projects and programs.
• How to define the goals and objectives of the plan, which may differ from the goals in the previous version. The six major goals adopted in the 2001 RTP were mobility, safety, equity, environment, economic vitality and community vitality. Proposed new goals could address: rehabilitation/maintenance, transit connectivity, reliable travel choices, smart growth, clean air, "lifeline" mobility, and safety/security. Discussion is needed on whether these are appropriate groupings, how progress will be measured, and whether other concerns should be added. MTC will also need to coordinate the new goals as much as possible with the transportation performance measures which were recently adopted as required by law (see August/September 2003 issue).
• How to distribute the funding when it becomes available. If there is not enough money to go around, how much goes where? The 2001 RTP, which was financially constrained, designated approximately 90% of the money expected for the planning period as "committed funds", meaning they were earmarked because of voter mandates, state or federal laws, or previous MTC decisions. Many of the projects in the 2001 RTP using committed funds are not complete because the planning period extended into the Transportation 2030 time-frame. Some decisions will need to be made on whether all the projects for which prospective funds have been committed will continue to be part of Transportation 2030. If so, they will once again use 90% of the funding. If not, and some of the committed funding is freed up for other projects, what will they be and how will they be chosen?
For the 2001 RTP, MTC commissioners agreed to fund 100% of any shortfalls for transit capital needs and key local streets and roads. If this policy is maintained for Transportation 2030, $8.2 billion—almost all of the $9.6 billion in uncommitted funds—could go to these shortfalls. Including all local streets and roads, the shortfalls could total $14 billion. Likewise, there are enough new project needs to use all the available funds without providing any money for maintenance and operation of the existing system. Ongoing regional traveler information programs, transit connectivity and freeway service patrols may also be competing for uncommitted funds, together with bicycle projects, lifeline transportation for people dependent on public transit, and other regional and local priorities. Although some of these might be financed through additional funds included in the Big Tent, such as additional sales tax revenues or a regional gas tax, the financially constrained portion of the plan will need to reflect some very difficult choices.
• How to pull together transportation and land use for the best transportation investments. With the completion of the Smart Growth project, MTC has a commitment to integrate some of those policies into the Transportation 2030 Plan. As part of the 2001 RTP, the agency tripled the size of the Transportation for Livable Communities/Housing Incentive Programs, which might be further expanded or leveraged through programs such as T-PLUS (see article in this issue) . The Commission could also adopt a specific policy explicitly linking transportation planning to Smart Growth objectives. Some transit expansion funds distributed by MTC could be conditioned on the presence of supportive land use policies such as transit-oriented development plans.
MTC will make some decisions by the end of 2003 on the percentage of committed and uncommitted funds which will be allocated to regional or local projects. If participants in community meetings and other forums confirm the early responses to these planning questions, Transportation 2030 will be shaping up as a Big Tent plan, including far more issues and non-confirmed funding sources than before. It will link transportation planning, and even project funding, to smart growth objectives for the region.
In early 2004, countywide meetings will be held by the congestion management agencies to look at local concerns that need to be accommodated. These will be the next opportunities to review and comment on the key components of the Transportation 2030 Plan after the fall meetings.
Leslie Stewart
For more information: Community Outreach for Transportation 2030, Ellen Griffin, 510-464-7854, egriffin@mtc.ca.gov
MTC's Transportation 2030 information is online at http://www.mtc.ca.gov/T2030/