Transportation Improvement Program: Broadway Bridge

As you may be aware, the DRAFT Regional Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) for Ada and Canyon Counties for fiscal years 2012 - 2016 is open for public comment through Monday, July 25, 2011.

The TIP is a budget showing where funding for regional transportation projects will be spent over the next five years in the Treasure Valley.

The TIP can be an overwhelming and confusing document. After all, it is a government budget that spans five years and covers hundreds of projects over two counties. It can be difficult to wade through.

That said, what is contained in the TIP will affect you –the projects are designed to make our roads and bridges safer, improve traffic flow, add and improve facilities for pedestrians and bicyclists, and help preserve your transportation system.

In this blog over the next few weeks I’m going to highlight a few of the projects to help give you a sense of the variety and significance of what you will find in the TIP.

The Broadway Bridge in Boise is one of many bridge projects in the TIP. Built in 1956, the bridge, near downtown Boise and Boise State University, is now considered to be “structurally deficient” by the National Bridge Inventory Database (http://nationalbridges.com/), which concludes the bridge is “basically intolerable requiring high priority of replacement.”

The much-needed bridge replacement will soon be reality, and this can be seen in the TIP. The project has been shown in the TIP since fiscal year 2009. Initially funding was only available to repair the bridge, but additional funding has now been allocated to completely rebuild it. Construction is scheduled in fiscal year 2015. The new bridge will include an additional traffic lane, bike lanes, and upgraded sidewalks to make crossing the bridge safer for bicyclists and pedestrians.

This is one of just many projects budgeted in the TIP that may affect you and the way you get around in the valley. Take a few minutes to look at the projects in the TIP and provide your comments, and check back here as we delve into some of the other projects over the next few weeks.

Transportation Time

Most of you are probably familiar with the concept of “geologic time.” While “geologic time” has a specific, technical meaning, many of us simply use it to refer to things that happen so slowly that they are imperceptible when we use normal, “human” time to measure them.

The same can be said of large transportation projects. Many decades can pass between when a project is first conceived in a long-range transportation plan and when it is finally completed. It can seem like forever and often gives the appearance that nothing is happening.

In fact, one of the most common comments my staff and I hear from members of the public is, “You ask for our input into your long-range planning process, but then we never see anything happen afterwards. What gives?”

Things do happen, but they happen slowly. Instead of “geologic time,” we have “transportation time.”

The recent completion of the new Ten-Mile Interchange is a perfect example of the slow but steady progress of “transportation time,” and proof that things really do happen.

An interchange at Ten-Mile Road was first identified as a need in 1996 in Destination 2015, the long-range transportation plan for Ada County. The interchange was also identified as the highest priority for a new interchange in the 2001 I-84 Corridor Study conducted by COMPASS and the Idaho Transportation Department. It finally appeared in the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) – a five-year budget for transportation projects – in 2007; construction began in 2009.

Moving from a long-range plan into the short-range TIP is a huge milestone – it means the project has moved from a “theoretical” stage (we know we need it) to a “reality” stage (we have money and plans to build it).

There are several reasons why it takes so long to move from theory to reality.

1. Prep work must be done. Before a transportation project can be built, many things must happen that aren’t necessarily visible to the traveling public. Studies must be completed. Environmental work must be done and approved. Land must be purchased. The list goes on. These things can take many years, and many dollars, to complete.

2. Funding must be available. Road construction projects are very expensive and there simply isn’t enough money to do every project that is identified in the plan. Acquiring enough funding for a large project such as the Ten-Mile Interchange can take a great deal of time, cooperation, and perseverance (just ask Mayor de Weerd). For the Ten-Mile Interchange, funding came in the form of GARVEE bonds, which allowed it to move forward faster than many projects without this source of funding.

3. It’s supposed to work that way. Long-range transportation plans are truly that – long range. They plan 20+ years into the future, which means they identify projects that will be needed in the future. If there wasn’t a time gap between when projects are identified in the plan and when they are urgently needed, we wouldn’t be doing an adequate job of long-range planning.

The Ten-Mile Interchange actually moved quite quickly in “transportation time.” For many projects, the time span between first appearing in the long-range plan and completion can be 20 to 30 years. In this case, it was only 15.

While the time frame, even a “short” 15 years, is often not what people expect, the Ten-Mile Interchange demonstrates that projects identified in a long-range plan do move forward and do get completed. It doesn’t happen fast; it happens in “transportation time.”

I hate to brag, but…

Sometimes a little bragging is in order. This is one of those times.

Every year, COMPASS staff develop population estimates for Ada and Canyon Counties and cities, with input from the COMPASS Demographic Advisory Committee (DAC). Those estimates are based on the most recent Census data, plus a variety of other factors, including household vacancy rates, average household size, and other information.

There are a variety of sources of these data, and sometimes those sources do not agree. COMPASS staff and DAC members carefully consider the different data sets and choose which to use to estimate the area’s population.

Census data are collected every 10 years. In the first years following data collection, the Census data are likely still fairly accurate. However, as years pass and we get further from a Census year, the data are less accurate. What that means is it gets harder and harder to develop an accurate population estimate as we get further away from the most recent Census year. Year 10 (2010 in this case) is always the hardest.

In fact, knowing how difficult it is to develop an accurate estimate in Year 10, the COMPASS Board chose not to adopt the COMPASS staff recommended estimates for 2010 and to wait for Census numbers to be released instead.

Census numbers for 2010 were released last month. How did those COMPASS recommended estimates for 2010 compare to the actual Census numbers?

This is where the bragging comes in.

Overall, COMPASS estimates were off (high) by 0.9% for Ada and Canyon Counties combined. For Ada County, COMPASS over-estimated by 1.4%; for Canyon County, COMPASS under- estimated by a mere 0.1%.

These numbers are impressive by any standards. Given the fact that the baseline Census data were 10 years old and considering the rollercoaster decade that was the 2000s, they are downright phenomenal.

Congratulations to Carl Miller, COMPASS Principal Planner for Demographics, and the entire COMPASS Demographic Advisory Committee. Your efforts, and results, are to be commended.

(Want to see the numbers I'm talking about? Click here and navigate to page 28.)

All Dressed Up and No Way to Get There?

“Do more with less” seems to be the mantra these days. Communities and many agencies suffer budget and staffing cuts, while simultaneously facing increased demands for services.

COMPASS is working to help ease some of these issues for small rural communities with its “All Dressed Up and No Way to Get There” toolkit. The toolkit was funded through a grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The toolkit is designed to provide ideas, resources, and easy-to-use templates for rural communities and others working to help residents find ways to get where they need to go with or without access to a personal vehicle.

It is specifically designed for agencies with limited funding and staff time. The items in the toolkit are easy to use, low-tech, and free or inexpensive to implement.

The toolkit contains background information and lists of ideas for facilitating and promoting carpooling, walking/biking, using community vehicles, and creating ordinances to promote land use that supports these. Templates can be downloaded and customized for many of the items discussed, including model lease agreements, a model ordinance, and a variety of promotion materials. The toolkit also provides links to transportation resources available in southwest Idaho.

Who would use this toolkit? One example might be a senior center that runs a van into Nampa once a week for seniors to shop. The van runs half-full and is struggling financially. The operator sees an opportunity to open the service to non-seniors. By charging a nominal fee this could help offset costs, as well as provide a community service to other residents. However, the operator is a part-time volunteer with no marketing budget or background, and very limited time. This toolkit can provide that volunteer with the resources to market that expanded service.

Check it out online at www.compassidaho.org/prodserv/mobility_toolkit.htm or order a CD of the materials by emailing litkonen@compassidaho.org.

COMPASS on the Move

On Monday, March 21, the Meridian Development Corporation, COMPASS, and Valley Regional Transit broke ground on a new building in downtown Meridian that will soon serve as the headquarters for COMPASS and Valley Regional Transit. Meridian Development Corporation owns the downtown lot where the building will be built and will sell the building to COMPASS and Valley Regional Transit upon completion. COMPASS will own the second floor of the two-condo building; Valley Regional Transit will own most of the first floor. The remainder of the first floor will be meeting rooms jointly owned by the two organizations.

This move is an important step forward in the life of COMPASS, and will help us better serve you and fulfill our mission more efficiently and effectively.

After 26 years of renting office space, first in Boise then in Meridian, COMPASS will own its office. Per direction from the COMPASS Board, we have been setting aside funds since 2006 specifically for this purpose, which will allow us to pay cash. Freeing up money that has been used for rent in the past, coupled with the ability to pay cash, saves public money. COMPASS will be able to weather cost increases in other areas of our budget without raising member dues, which is the portion of the COMPASS budget that comes from local tax dollars via our member agencies.

COMPASS has not raised dues since 2008 and cut dues in 2009 to help member agencies as they struggled with decreasing revenues.

This move supports the goals and vision of Communities in Motion, the regional long-range transportation plan for Ada and Canyon Counties, which COMPASS develops. The building location in downtown Meridian is consistent with the plan vision for compact growth in an already developed area. An additional bonus is that it should also help revitalize downtown Meridian. The office will be in walking distance of goods and services and is located near the current rail line, which may someday be a corridor for public transportation in the valley. The building will be built to LEED silver standards, which will contribute to a more sustainable community.

COMPASS and Valley Regional Transit already work closely on many issues. Sharing a building will increase our efficiency and strengthen communication and coordination between the agencies.

I appreciate the foresight of the COMPASS Board in planning ahead to allow us to make this move, which ultimately will allow us to serve you better.

Please plan to visit us at our new office after we move in next fall.