Transportation Improvement Program: Maintenance and Preservation

The past few weeks I’ve blogged about three of the many transit and roadway projects in the DRAFT Regional Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) for fiscal years 2012 – 2016. I hope you have, or will, take time to look through the draft TIP, as the projects I’ve discussed are just the TIP of the iceberg (yes, pun intended). Other, equally important items in the TIP include the purchase of buses and commuter vans, improvements at intersections, and improvements and additions to sidewalks and other facilities for pedestrians and bicyclists.

However, one critical item that can get lost in the discussion is the process of maintaining and repairing our roads and bridges. The draft TIP allocates over $88 million (in current dollars) to maintenance and repair over the five-year period, not including rebuilding the Broadway Bridge that I discussed in my earlier blog.

I am highlighting maintenance and repairs for several reasons:

1. Road maintenance is expensive, but lack of maintenance is even more so. Lack of proper maintenance can lead to additional expense in the future. Fixing roads and bridges later is more expensive then maintaining them now. In addition, driving on poorly maintained roads increase wear and tear on your car, meaning you end up paying more for repairs, tire alignment, etc.

2. Road maintenance and repair are slowly consuming larger and larger portions of the overall transportation budget. As costs increase, but revenues and maintenance needs do not, there is less and less money for larger projects, such as adding new lanes or improving an intersection. For many agencies, the emphasis has shifted from “build more” to “take care of what you have.” I predict that you’ll see maintenance grow even more as a percentage of the overall transportation budget in the years to come.

3. Maintenance and repair are extremely important to maintain our transportation system. No, they are not exciting, so they typically don’t get a lot of press or fanfare. No one hosts a ribbon cutting for chip sealing. On the contrary, many people complain about routine maintenance being done near their home or place of business. Think of road maintenance like brushing your teeth. Tooth brushing is routine maintenance for dental health. If you don’t brush regularly you can face significant dental work, and the high cost that goes with it, in the future. The same is true for our transportation system.

As you read and comment on the draft TIP, you’ll notice two groups of categories that contain most of the maintenance projects: “Roadway (Maintenance)” and “Bridge” under “Grouped Projects.” Within each of these you’ll see total dollars allocated to road maintenance and bridge maintenance. Within those groups you will find lists showing the projects that are likely to be funded in those groups.

You have until Monday, July 25, 2011, to make comments on the draft TIP. Please take a few minutes to review the projects and provide your input. You can do so by clicking here.

Transportation Improvement Program: Treasure Valley High-Capacity Alternatives Analysis

If you’ve been following my blog the past few weeks you are aware that the draft Regional Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) for fiscal years 2012 – 2016 is open for comment through Monday, July 25, 2011. Please take a few minutes to review the projects and provide your input. You can do so by clicking on the link above.

At COMPASS one of the most common comments we hear is, “There should be a train between Caldwell and Boise. Why hasn’t anyone thought of that?!”

Trust me, we have.

Communities in Motion, the regional long-range transportation plan for Ada and Canyon Counties, identifies the need for some sort of “high capacity” transit between Caldwell and Boise. That could be some type of train, or it could be something else. However, moving from an identified need to constructing a high-capacity transit system is not a simple process.

COMPASS and Valley Regional Transit conducted studies to explore the feasibility, costs, and benefits of a high capacity service, which were good first steps. However, if we hope to use federal dollars to eventually build the system, we must also conduct an official “alternatives analysis,” known as an “AA.” It will determine the best route and mode of transit for the conditions in our region. We cannot simply decide we want a certain type of transit in a certain location. We must evaluate multiple options to find the best solution.

COMPASS has been actively pursuing funding for an AA for several years. In 2008, 2010, and 2011, we requested federal high-priority grant appropriations (earmarks) to conduct the AA, but did not receive funding. COMPASS also applied for a federal “TIGER II Planning Grant” to conduct the analysis. We did not receive that funding either.

An AA is now included in the TIP in “preliminary development,” meaning the AA will be funded in the near future. At this point there is no plan (or money) for actual construction. The draft TIP allocates $1 million to conduct an AA. The next update to Communities in Motion (due in 2014) will be used to help decide if the AA should focus on potential corridors south of the Boise River (e.g., the rail corridor, the interstate) or north of the Boise River (e.g., Highway 44/State Street).

One million dollars is not enough money to conduct the entire required detailed analysis. However, it gives us a starting point. We will carefully choose how that money is spent to conduct portions of the analysis that have the longest “shelf life.” That is, we’ll focus on those items that will remain valid for the longest time. We want to avoid a situation where the first parts of our analysis become too old to use before the last parts are finished.

While the AA is a necessary step, it is not our biggest hurdle, nor is the funding to build the system the biggest issue. The elephant in the room is that there is no funding to operate such a system. Until we have a dedicated funding source to pay for day-to-day operations, the rest is moot.

That is another issue altogether, and one we’ll continue to work on. In the meantime, we will begin by laying the early groundwork for a high capacity transit system through the AA process.

Transportation Improvement Program: Canyon County Rail Safety Projects

As I discussed in my last post, 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. Please take a few moments to look at the documents and submit your comments.

This is my second in a series of blogs highlighting projects in the TIP. My focus today is on three projects to improve safety at rail crossings in Canyon County – one each on Farmway Road, Peckham Road, and Allendale Road.

In total, these three projects are forecast to cost just under $500,000, which makes them among the smaller projects in the TIP. However, the safety benefits will be significant.

The Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) asked local highway districts to submit requests for funding for rail crossings that needed safety improvements. Canyon Highway District and Golden Gate Highway District in Canyon County both responded with requests for improvements. Farmway Road falls under the jurisdiction of Canyon Highway District and Peckham and Allendale Roads are in the Golden Gate Highway District.

All three railroad crossings receive significant truck traffic; the heavy loads from the trucks cause more wear and tear on the road surface than regular auto traffic. In addition, these are all in rural areas, so traffic is moving faster than in more populated areas.

Currently, each of these crossings is built of asphalt. The truck traffic across the asphalt causes it to deteriorate and become rough or bumpy. The rough road where vehicles cross the railroad tracks can lead to a loss of vehicle control or even to a vehicle becoming stranded on the tracks.

The projects will all undergo a similar “fix” to make the crossing smoother, which will increase safety. Boise Valley Railroad and the local highway districts will rebuild the “planking” — the road surface two feet on each side of the rail and in between the rails — to create a smoother transition between the rail area and the roadway. The new planking will be concrete, instead of the current asphalt, which will create a smoother surface. An additional long-term benefit of the concrete is that it is more durable, which will reduce future maintenance costs for the local highway districts. In addition to the new “planking,” railroad signals and gates will be added at the Farmway Road crossing.

These projects are just a small sample of what you will find budgeted for in the TIP. Take a moment to check it out and submit your comments.

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.)