Application of SHRP2 Decision Support Tool to SR 509 Corridor Planning
To:
14th TRB National Transportation Planning Applications Conference
Topic Area: Corridor Planning, NEPA, and Environmental Studies
Columbus, Ohio
May 5-9, 2013
By:
Shuming Yan
Urban Planning Office
Washington State Department of Transportation
401 2nd Ave South, Suite 300, Seattle, WA 98104
Ph: 206.464.1276; Fax: 206.464.1286
Delwar Murshed
Urban Planning Office
Washington State Department of Transportation
401 2nd Ave South, Suite 300, Seattle, WA 98104
Ph: 206.464.1263; Fax: 206.464.1286
April 15, 2013
Application of SHRP2 Decision Support Tool to SR 509 Corridor Planning
ABSTRACT
In 2003, the Washington State Department of Transportation completed the preliminary design and environmental impact study with a record of decision (ROD) for the completion of a missing freeway link - connecting State Route 509 to Interstate5, on the south side of Sea-Tac International Airport. The project is expected to provide additional access to the airport and the Port of Seattle, provide congestion relief on local arterials and greater opportunity for stimulating economic development. Despite many years of cooperation between WSDOT and its local partners, funding for constructing the project has never materialized due to high project cost and many other competing projects in the region. The 2009 State Legislature directed WSDOT to study tolling as a potential funding option for this project. The study found that tolling would not only generate revenue but could also help manage travel demand, providing an opportunity to phase construction and reduce initial project costs.
How to phase the project that will garner strong support from all parties interested in the project? WSDOT decided to answer this question with the help of Transportation for Communities – Advancing Projects through Partnerships (TCAPP) tool developed by the Transportation Research Board under the second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP2). TCAPP is a decision support tool to systematically build collaboration into transportation decision-making by ensuring the right people are at the table at the right time with the right information to make good choices that will stand up to scrutiny. After working collaboratively with the stakeholders using some of the tools and techniques provided under TCAPP, WSDOT successfully defined Phase 1 of the project. The resulting design reduced the initial project implementation cost by approximately $400 million while preserving most of the project benefits.
This paper documents how WSDOT used the TCAPP tool to facilitate and collaborate with the project stakeholders and local partners in defining scope of the first phase of the project by taking tolling into consideration. It also includes recommendations for improving the tool.
Keywords: SHRP2, corridor study, TCAPP, decision points, collaborative decisions, stakeholders’ survey, project management.
INTRODUCTION
Transportation decisions are often contentious and exhibit breakthroughs when decision makers engage collaboratively with those outside the process who are interested in and affected by the outcome. The most successful projects are often proactive in working with all stakeholders, including potential opponents, early in the process. Close collaboration with the community to meet an array of needs beyond transportation system improvements is another key to successful outcomes.
“Transportation for Communities – Advancing Projects through Partnership (TCAPP)” was developed under the second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP2) administered by the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies to facilitate collaborative decision making (1). It is a web-based decision support tool to systematically build collaboration into transportation decision-making by ensuring the right people are at the table at the right time with the right information to make good choices that will stand up to scrutiny. TCAPP was developed based on the philosophy that successful project implementation will require timely decisions that balance economic, environmental, and community needs. It includes successful practices for reaching collaborative decisions, case studies, and a performance-measurement framework.
In 2010, TRB issued a request for proposals to conduct pilot tests of TCAPP. The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), in partnership with the University of Washington Transportation Research Center (TRAC) and Baillie & Associates, responded with a proposal to apply the TCAPP tools and demonstrate how they could help facilitate the project stakeholders and local partners in defining the Phase 1 scope of SR 509 Corridor Completion and I-5 Freight Mobility Project by taking tolling into consideration.
PROJECT BACKGROUND
In 2003, after decades of on and off planning, WSDOT completed the preliminary design and environmental review (2) for the completion of State Route 509 to Interstate 5, a missing freeway link between SR 509 and I-5, on the south side of Sea-Tac International Airport. The general location of the project within the larger Seattle metropolitan area is shown in Figure 1. The project’s master plan calls for three lanes in each direction with more than six miles of widening on I-5 to mitigate the traffic brought on by the SR 509 extension project. Figure 2 shows the new roads (highlighted in yellow) that would be built under the plan described in the federal record of decision (3).
FIGURE 1: Vicinity map of the SR 509 project.
The project was originally developed under a toll free assumption. At the time the corridor master plan was developed, tolling was not considered as an option. The full scope of the SR 509 project incorporated in the federal record of decision includes the following major components:
· Completing the SR 509 corridor by building three miles of missing freeway with two general purpose lanes and one high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane in each direction
· Widening more than six miles of I-5 from the SR 509 extension to the south in Federal Way including rebuilding several interchanges
· Building a freeway connector that provides direct and more convenient access to Sea-Tac International Airport from the south
· Providing a direct freight route from a major seaport (the Port of Seattle) to the fourth largest regional warehousing district (i.e., Kent Valley) in the country.
The full scope of the project was designed to reduce congestion on I-5 and local arterials, and create opportunity for stimulating local economic development.
FIGURE 2: Overview of the SR 509 corridor completion project.
In the 10 years since completing the preliminary design and environmental review, funding for the project has never materialized due to high project cost (over $1.2 billion) and competing transportation priorities in the region. In 2009, the state legislature directed WSDOT to conduct a toll feasibility study (4) to analyze how much revenue could be generated to help implement the project if the corridor were tolled. Key findings of the study were:
· Tolling is expected to generate a significant amount of revenue to help fund the project’s construction, ranging from $250 million to $600 million depending on how the roadway is tolled and the market conditions under which tolling is applied.
· Tolling aimed at generating maximum revenue is expected to reduce traffic demand by approximately 50 percent compared to the toll free condition, creating the opportunity to reduce, downsize, or phase project construction initially. This improves corridor efficiency, reduces upfront construction costs, and makes the project financially feasible.
The next critical step in moving the project forward was to develop a preferred implementation that will be acceptable to all stakeholders. However, funding to carry out this critical task was not available at the time. The TCAPP tool and funding for conducting pilot test couldn’t have come at a better time.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PILOT TEST AND SUMMARY OF RESULTS
TRB selected WSDOT’s I-5/SR 509 Corridor Completion and Freight Improvement project as one of the pilot projects for the collaborative decision-making tool, TCAPP. The goal of this pilot test was to demonstrate how the TCAPP tool could help facilitate the project stakeholders and their local partners in making key decisions in order to move the project forward. For the SR 509 project this included defining Phase 1 of the project for implementation by taking tolling into consideration.
The pilot test was conducted by a project team consisting of WSDOT, the Washington State Transportation Center (TRAC), and the consulting firms Baillie & Associates and Parsons Brinckerhoff. TRAC served as the project independent evaluator for assessing the TCAPP tool and methodology deployed in this pilot test.
This pilot project focused on applying and testing the tools and protocols, particularly the key decision points (KDPs) developed under the Corridor Planning Guide (Figure 3), to reach a collaborative decision on a preferred phasing plan. Since the SR 509 project’s environmental impact statement and record of decision were completed prior to this effort, some of the decision points did not apply to this project. For those decision points that do apply, the project team modified them slightly to better suit the project. Some were combined while others were revisited. For example, COR-2 and COR-3 were refreshed, and COR-5 and COR-8 were combined. The project team tested all of the decision points in the guide except COR-1 which had already been defined in the original environmental impact statement.
FIGURE 3: The key decision points in the TCAPP corridor planning guide.
At the beginning of the study, the project team developed a schedule (Figure 4) for collaborating with the steering committee, the executive committee and the public by following the corridor planning decision points depicted under the TCAPP Decision Guide.
FIGURE 4: SR 509 project collaboration schedule.
The collaboration plan evolved as it progressed through various decision points. The first major change was caused by the fact that the project did not receive funding from the legislature to perform the proposed financial analysis, host public open houses, and refine the previously performed environmental work. In response, the project team modified the collaboration plan to adapt to the funding reality. The project team conducted a public opinion survey instead of public open houses. The toll revenue analysis, preferred toll strategies and environmental reevaluation were postponed to a future time when funding becomes available.
By following the TCAPP philosophy of right information at the right time the project team reduced the number of steering committee meetings to five and executive committee meetings to two. The project team added a meeting with the Washington State Transportation Commission to inform them about the Phase 1 scoping recommendation.
The project team worked collaboratively with the stakeholders using some of the tools and techniques provided on the web under the TCAPP corridor planning protocol. The project team specifically looked to TCAPP to help address the following items:
· stakeholder involvement techniques
· decision-making authority definition
· stakeholder collaboration assessment
· consensus on environmental review and analysis
· development of evaluation criteria and performance measures
· adopting preferred solution set and priorities for implementation
· examples included in case studies
Stakeholder Involvement
The SR 509 master plan was the result of many years of collaboration among the project stakeholders represented by a steering committee and an executive committee. The steering committee provided ongoing guidance on technical and process issues, while the executive committee was the decision-making body for the project.
The steering committee was originally comprised of local and regional agencies as well as Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Port of Seattle. The original steering committee did not include representatives from special interest groups and natural resource agencies. The executive committee consisted of local and state elected officials and executives from partnering agencies affected by or benefiting from the project.
Expansion of Stakeholders Representation
Using collaboration assessment techniques in TCAPP, the project team conducted a thorough assessment of the project stakeholder committee, assembled during the development of EIS, to determine if the full range of interests and perspectives were represented. In the assessment, the project team included the following key questions as suggested by TCAPP:
· Who are the key stakeholders?
· Who has the ability to stall the project and on what grounds?
Steering Committee: The steering committee assessment included a series of interviews with staff of the original EIS team to understand how well the steering committee functioned, and if the committee needed to be expanded to include representatives from resource agencies and other interest groups. Based on the assessment results, the committee membership was expanded to include representatives from three new interest groups: freight, local business and residents.
After consulting with environmental experts within WSDOT, the project team approached the resource agency representatives to see if they preferred to be on the steering committee or wished to continue to coordinate with the project team outside of the steering committee. Due to the unique situation of this project, they preferred the latter and believed it was the most efficient process for this project.
Executive Committee: The project team took similar steps in examining the need for expanding the executive committee as was done for the expansion of the steering committee. Since the project has a record of decision, the legislature is the ultimate decision maker in moving this project forward. They must appropriate the funding needed to complete the project and, if necessary, authorize tolling on the facility.
An important lesson was learned early in this project when the Legislature did not allocate funding for conducting a comprehensive toll study. This reinforced the idea that key legislators needed to be included in the executive committee. Based on the assessment results, the project team decided to expand the executive committee by inviting two key state legislators from the project area, who also serve on the transportation committees.
The addition of these new members was instrumental in achieving a high level of consensus on the preferred phasing option. The project team found the TCAPP program to be helpful in identifying and involving key project stakeholders early on in the planning process.
Decision-Making Authority
Decision-making authority (1) is the ability of stakeholders and the team as a whole to make key decisions regarding the project outcomes and to have those decisions respected and upheld by the agencies they represent as well as other decision-making partners.
Washington state law gives decisions related to tolling authorization and project funding to the legislature; and setting toll rates and exemptions to the transportation commission. This statute places some limits on the project committee’s scope and type of the decisions. However, stakeholder support for tolling is essential for obtaining legislative approval.