Michigan Transportation Planning Association. Meeting Minutes. November 17, MDOT Horatio S. Earle Learning Center

Transcription

1 Michigan Transportation Planning Association Meeting Minutes November 17, 2015 MDOT Horatio S. Earle Learning Center 1. Call to Order Chair Ryan Buck called the meeting to order at 10:03 A.M. and led the group in introductions. 2. Changes or Additions to the Agenda Steve Bulthuis said he remembered that MTPA had once developed a list of common contacts at various state and federal agencies to use as part of the MPO consultation list for the TIP. Jason Nordberg recalled that it was two TIP cycles previously when that list was developed. Susan Gorski said that she believed MDOT might have developed that list and will check. Bulthuis remarked that the list was extremely helpful. 3. Approval of October 20 Meeting Minutes Buck requested that the section about the MTPA organizational structure be amended to state that the RFP he is working on will present a list of options based on MTPA s needs, and is not necessarily just to hire a staff person for MTPA. Gautam Mani noted that DEQ had submitted a corrected version of the second paragraph of the air quality section in the October 20 meeting minutes: A map showing the ozone monitors in Michigan was shared. Five monitors have 3-year averages over the new ozone standard according to preliminary data. The monitoring data will be quality assured and validated before submittal to EPA by the deadline of May, By October, the DEQ will send Michigan s recommendations to EPA of attainment and nonattainment designations based on monitoring data from The recommendation will also include the boundaries of any areas recommended as nonattainment. The EPA is required to publish final designations in the Federal Register by October, The final designations will be based on a newer dataset ( ) so ozone levels next summer may change the nonattainment outlook. The nonattainment areas will also be classified, which will establish attainment deadlines and requirements. Nonattainment areas will have one year to conform their TIPs and LRPs to Michigan s State Implementation Plan (SIP). A motion was made by Maja Bolanowska with support by Jon Start to approve the minutes of the October 20 MTPA meeting, with corrections as noted. Motion passed. 4. Treasurer s Report 1

2 Treasurer Lindsay Wallace said there was no Treasurer s Report this month. There is currently a balance in the MTPA account of $20, FHWA Updates Environmental Justice and Title VI Rachael Tupica thanked all who participated in the fundamentals of Environmental Justice webinar in October. Tupica said that FHWA was looking for feedback on that webinar prior to the February training. MTPA members praised the webinar and found it helpful in deciding who at their agency to send to the main training in February. Tupica said that a recording of the webinar was available and that she would post it to the MTPA website very shortly. Buck asked whether anyone had attended a recent Title VI training and wondered who had organized that training. Wallace said that she had attended training and that it was MDOT who had hosted it at the Aeronautics building. Buck said that the Title VI training would potentially be useful for many MPOs. Proposed Rulemakings Andrea Dewey provided an update on that status of the Notice of Proposed Performance Measures Rulemakings. The Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) proposed rulemaking has been delayed from November to December. The final rule on Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan Planning will be issued sometime between January and March The rule on Pavement and Bridge Condition will be issued by May 2016, and the Highway Asset Management Plan rule will be issued in May Brad Sharlow asked for an update on System Performance Rulemaking. Dewey said that one was still expected to be issued in November National Functional Classification Review Andy Pickard said that FHWA is currently reviewing NFC reclassification requests from the statewide review, and they anticipate completing that process by the end of the calendar year. Change proposals to the NHS system will be reviewed by the end of February. Federal Reauthorization Pickard also shared that a new transportation authorization had been passed by the US House and Senate, and a conference committee had been convened to reconcile the two versions of 2

3 the bill. Pickard anticipated another extension to MAP-21 for a few weeks while the conference committee continued to reconcile the bills. Bulthuis asked whether there were any analyses out there of changes to the planning-related portions of the transportation bill. Mullen said that there had been a push from large-city mayors for a greater portion of STP money to be distributed through the population formula and also more money to be. However, amendments to change the distribution have not passed as yet. Bulthuis noted that there were no changes to MPO population thresholds. MPO Freight Assessment Andrea Dewey thanked MPOs that had sent her their MPO Freight Assessments as requested. She was in the process of compiling and reporting on those assessments. 6. MDOT Updates TSM &O Steve Cook from MDOT and Dan Kretchmer from Cambridge Systematics gave a presentation on MDOT s Traffic Systems Management and Operations. Cook recognized that MDOT had come a long way from doing operations to doing Traffic System Management and Operations. In particular, MDOT is very focused on changing design guidance and planning guidance for operations. Kretchmer said that innovation was happening at the state level across the country because planners and engineers are recognizing that adding lanes is not a traffic management strategy. Kretchmer said that adding capacity is becoming more difficult financially and physically, and there has been an increased push to address all causes of congestion, not just a small percentage of them. Kretchmer said that the ability to leverage technology has been a big reason for the evolution of TSM&O, as technology that was unimagined ten years ago is allowing for completely automated data collection on traffic patterns, as well as active traffic management. Cook said that a next step for TSM&O was integration of the process into state and local planning documents, with solutions prioritized and divided into high, medium and low cost solutions. Gorski said that the State Long Range Plan was a policy document and did not get into project level analysis. However, there were still opportunities to better integrate TSM&O into policy. Bulthuis said it was good to see the business case being made for TSM&O within the presentation, as this was something he could take back to his Policy Committee so they could understand the value of TSM&O. 3

4 Buck asked whether MDOT had developed an implementation plan for TSM&O as yet. Cook said that MDOT had not gotten that far as yet. Tom Doyle asked whether access management was a strategy incorporated into TSM&O. Gorski said that was not explicitly identified as part of TSM&O, but identified in the State Long Range Plan. Kretchmer noted that the website for the National Operations Center for Excellence offered excellent best practice examples. The website is at Jon Start said that the new data is very helpful. He raised the long-term question of how we incorporate TSM&O into the model, and how we demonstrate the impact of TSM&O projects on air quality. Start also asked whether there were concerns over bandwidth limitations hampering the accuracy of data. Cook said bandwidth was a concern, but the existing technology still does allow MDOT and others to gather good data despite those limitations. Mark Ferrall asked whether strategies such as transit signal prioritization were incorporated into TSM&O data collection and strategies, and whether TSM&O looked at transit and nonmotorized elements. Specifically, Ferrall asked about whether the impacts of mid-block crossings are incorporated into considerations of traffic flow, so that different priorities can be developed in different contexts. Cook said that all of these elements are considered, and part of TSM&O is to not accept motorized traffic conditions as a given. Changes to demand can definitely impact operations. Tom Bruff concurred based on SEMCOG s experience with TSM&O, saying that pedestrian and transit improvements are taken into consideration. The complete presentation can be found at : ESTIP Training Watkin noted that ESTIP training was continuing, and emphasized that participants needed two separate single sign-on IDs from the state. One ID would be used for trainings and the other ID would be used for actual inputs into the E-STIP by the MPO. Chris Hundt will also be present at the December meeting to talk about implementation of MAP- 21 and provide an update on performance measures in Michigan. 4

5 State Revenue package Arnie Frobom presented on the specifics of the new transportation revenue package passed by the state legislature and signed into law by Governor Snyder. A portion of the revenue will come from growth in the general fund, and a portion of the revenue will come from new revenues via the gasoline tax and registration fee increases. Many of the specifics are available in the House Fiscal Agency analysis of the transportation bill, which can be found at: f Frobom also provided statewide revenue estimates. MTPA members inquired about specific revenue estimates for cities, villages, and counties. Mullen said that MDOT s analysis should be coming out shortly with that information and a breakdown of revenues. Bruff asked whether it would be possible to get an Excel spreadsheet of that funding breakdown. Mullen said he would make a request for Excel files [That request was later denied]. Frobom clarified that General Fund revenue will not go into to the CTF, so while transit will get an increase in revenue, it will not come out of general fund growth. In addition, this is the first time that the state is funding roads from the General Fund as a matter of course, and not as an annual or two year appropriation. Frobom pointed out that the legislature can always change its mind and re-allocate the General Fund revenue to other programs. Bulthuis asked about the lockbox provision, whereby a portion of the gasoline tax revenue is reserved by the state legislature until MDOT meets certain provisions. Frobom clarified that in Calendar year 2017, $100 million of the fuel tax in 2017 is sequestered by the legislature until MDOT delivers a report stating how it will attempt to build roads to a year surface life. March 1, 2016 report due from MDOT on how to build year surface life. Once the funding is released, it will flow through the Act 51 formula. Frobom noted that this means that Act 51 distributions will be reduced by 5% in 2017 if legislature does not release money from the lockbox fund program Watkin said that Statewide Planning and Passenger Transportation would be discussing the 5303 Carryover Balance situation in depth at the December 15 MTPA meeting. 7. Funding Estimates for New TIP Bulthuis said he had received the TIP estimates for from MDOT Finance and wanted to understand the rationale behind keeping revenues flat throughout the TIP cycle. Bulthuis also asked whether this revenue estimate would change if Congress takes action to increase funding to MPOs. Mullen said that MDOT had done an analysis of its apportionments over the last several years, and that these apportionments were down. There was expected to be a $183 million recission 5

6 in 2017, meaning that Michigan will receive approximately $74 million less during that year than it did during the first two years of MAP-21. Mullen said that the House and Senate bills did look promising for inflation-adjusted increases in funding, but for now, MDOT was advising local agencies to be conservative with their estimates. MTPA members asked whether there were changes to how STP was allocated based on population. Mullen said that currently, 50% of STP funding is allocated by population, and the other 50% can be spent anywhere. 37.5% of that total STP pot goes towards TMAs. Mullen said that large-city mayors had made a strong push for an allocation for cities over 1 million in population. There has been a push generally towards directing more money to TMAs and reducing the flexible, spend-anywhere amount. However, no changes to the population distribution formula have been finalized as yet. Darrell Robinson asked how long it would take MDOT to redo the estimates in the event that a new funding bill was passed. Mullen said that MDOT can do it pretty quickly, making general assumptions about funding. Kim Johnson said that Passenger Division was advising transit agencies to be conservative with their funding projections as well. Over the past five years, Michigan has seen an average of 0.5% in its apportionment for transit. 8. State Long Range Plan Updates Sharlow said that there had been a webinar last week about the State Long Range Plan update, and over 100 people had listened in and he thanked them for participating. Sharlow said that the Question and Answers from the webinar would be up by Friday, November 20 th. Sharlow said that there are many white papers being drafted related to the reaffirmation of the State Long Range Plan, and they hope to have all of those items out by the new year. MDOT is currently looking at sites for public meetings in March, and will be looking for assistance from MPOs in picking ideal sites. 9. Performance Measures Updates Sharlow noted that there was a congestion management group meeting at 1 PM later that day. Sharlow also thanked those who had attended the Caliper training in early November, and asked anyone who had ideas for topics for a TransCAD training next summer to please contact him. Watkin said that Chris Hundt s presentation at the December 15 th meeting will get into a greater level of awareness as to where the State of Michigan is with performance measures. 10. Education Committee Updates 6

7 No updates. 11. Other New Business Pam Boyd announced that Gonzalo Puente is retiring from MDOT as of the end of December. His retirement coffee will be December 17 th in Lansing, but Boyd said that she would try to get him to MTPA on December 15 th so that members could show their appreciation of Puente s efforts. Boyd announced that Lynette Firman, currently of MDOT s Safety Division, would be filling Gonzalo s position at Local Agency Programs. 12. Adjournment Meeting adjourned at 11:35 AM. Next meeting is Tuesday December 15, Minutes compiled by Gautam Mani, MTPA Secretary on November 17, In Attendance: Jay Anderson Maja Bolanowska Pamela Boyd Tom Bruff Ryan Buck Steve Bulthuis Danielle Coles (phone) Steve Cook (phone) Andrea Dewey (phone) Andrea Faber Mark Ferrall Joel Fitzpatrick Rick Fowler Aarne Frobom Matt Galbraith Phil Grimaldi (phone) Darrell Harden Kim Johnson Mark Kloha Jim Koenig John Lanum Gautam Mani Eric Mullen Jason Nordberg Andy Pickard Darrell Robinson Bay City Area Transportation Study Midland Area Transportation Study Southeast Michigan Council of Governments Washtenaw Area Transportation Study Macatawa Area Coordinating Council Federal Highway Administration Federal Highway Administration Grand Valley Metro Council Washtenaw Area Transportation Study West Michigan Shoreline Regional Development Commission Saginaw Area Transportation Study Southwest Michigan Planning Commission Genesee County Metropolitan Planning Commission Federal Highway Administration Grand Valley Metro Council 7

8 Nick Sapkiewicz Brad Sharlow James Snell Jon Start Andy Tilma Rachael Tupica (phone) Lindsay Wallace (phone) John Watkin Ola Williams Washtenaw Area Transportation Study Tri County Regional Planning Commission Kalamazoo Area Transportation Study Battle Creek Area Transportation Study Federal Highway Administration St. Clair County Metropolitan Planning 8