PURPOSE
AND GOALS
The regional transportation plan serves two basic functions.
First, it is an authoritative statement by the Housatonic
Valley Region's chief elected officials, serving since 1975
as the area’s federally recognized regional agency for
transportation planning, as to what is needed to improve mobility
within the Region.
Secondly,
it increases the public's awareness of transportation matters
and provides them with a point of contact with transportation
investment decisions. The public is invited to react to, and
help shape, the Plan. In cooperation with state and federal
transportation planning agencies, the resultant Regional Transportation
Plan serves as a focus for setting transportation priorities
and securing federal funding.
Although
many types of planning are best left at the local level, transportation
is so obviously intermunicipal in scope that the federal and
state governments have found it to be in the public's best
interest to look for regional solutions to transportation
problems.

SAMPLE OF THE TYPES OF TRANSPORTATION
POLICY
THAT WILL BE DETAILED IN LATER SECTIONS
OF THIS TRANSPORTATION PLAN
Green
(lighter gray in hard copy)
) designates existing
four lane roadways, while red
(darker gray in hard copy) indicates
two lane roadways proposed for expansion to four lanes.
See
full region on larger image.
Since
1975, each urbanized area in the United States, including
ten of the fifteen regional planning areas in Connecticut,
have followed federal guidelines to maintain a continuing,
cooperative and comprehensive transportation planning process.
This is required in order to be eligible for federally funded
transportation improvements.
Federal law gives HVCEO and similar regional councils the
designation of “Metropolitan
Planning Organization” (MPO). The purpose
of the MPO designation is to incorporate regional thinking
and priorities into each state’s transportation investment
strategy. The MPO designation is tied to the presence of an
urbanized area, as shown on this map of federally defined
urbanized
areas in Connecticut.
To
give the MPO designation some real meaning, HVCEO and the
other qualifying regional groups are granted partial control
over the fiscal decisions made by state transportation agencies
in their regions. This is achieved through control by the
MPO’s of inclusion of projects on a federal financial
programming list known as the "Statewide Transportation
Improvement Program" (STIP).
In
most cases, federal funds cannot be used for transportation
purposes within the Region unless they first appear on the
more localized
regional TIP adopted by HVCEO when acting
as the MPO. To insure the democratic nature of this power,
voting MPO members must be chief elected officials of local
governments.

The
state and the Region know that federal law requires them to
work together, and do so to mutual advantage. Since 1975 this
inclusive process has served Connecticut well.
The goals that guide the HVCEO in establishing transportation
priorities on the TIP in the Regional Transportation Plan
are:
GOAL
1. Use transportation planning and implementation
to support the economic vitality of the region, especially
by enabling business competitiveness, productivity and efficiency.
Coordinate the transportation system with local and state
goals for enhancing economic vitality.
GOAL
2. For the Region’s transportation system
as a whole, enhance physical and modal integration and connectivity,
increase safety and security, and promote efficient system
management and operation. Work to maximize the productivity
of existing transportation systems before such systems are
expanded.
GOAL
3. Develop a transportation network for our
growing region that is consistent with well planned patterns
of land development and that effectively integrates energy
conservation, air quality goals, environmental quality and
environmental mitigation into transportation system management
and growth. Coordination of such elements within thorough
inter-agency consultation shall be a fundamental feature of
HVCEO's transportation planning.
GOAL
4. Increase accessibility and mobility options
for people and freight. Promote a shift away from the one
person per car situation and toward increased vehicle occupancy
via continuous advocacy of public transit, car and van pooling.
GOAL
5. Continue to develop both formal and informal
working relationships with local officials, private citizens
and organizations having transportation concerns either in
common with or contrary to HVCEO's, for the purpose of dealing
effectively with interrelated transportation problems and
opportunities. Special efforts will be made to identify the
potential benefits and burdens of proposed transportation
projects upon lower income and minority groups.
OVERVIEW
OF KEY PLANNING DATA
The
recommendations of this Regional Transportation Plan are based
on the best available data. The key demographic data items
that officials and the public need in order to best understand
the Region's transportation needs are maintained and updated
regularly in an HVCEO web site section known as Area
Information. An overview
summary of the data is available.
Details
as to the journey to work component of total trips, often
characterized as about 25% of total daily travel, are also
available
from HVCEO.
Fundamentally,
the demand for transportation services of all kinds is correlated
with the size and characteristics of the population. This
relationship makes forecasts of population growth one of the
transportation planner's basic tools. Inaccurate estimates
of future population growth can, in turn, produce a transportation
system that cannot cope with the demands placed upon it.
The
Region's population grew rapidly between 1990 and 2000, with
an overall increase of 13%. This rate of increase was over
three times greater than the Statewide average of 3.6%.
The result has been a roadway network that shows increasing
traffic congestion, especially during peak hours. Demand for
bus and rail commuter services has grown.
Projections
of future traffic trends are not solely dependent upon population
figures and economic indicators. Certain population characteristics
that affect mobility must also be used to modify volume estimates.
One of the more important limitations on transportation mobility
is the proportion of the population that is either under
18 or over 65 years of age. People in these two
age groups can be assumed to be under-represented among drivers
in relation to their share of the total population.
The
2000 census indicates that most suburban towns have two or
three percent of households
with no vehicle available as of that time, with
eight percent in Danbury. Another twenty to thirty percent
in each municipality had only one vehicle available.
Clearly then, there are significant numbers of people in the
Region who are actual or potential users of public transit
services and whose needs must be addressed by transportation
planning and funding.
And
in order to fight any possible illegal discrimination, the
HVCEO planning program maintains census summaries of minority
and lower income populations. For the Housatonic Valley Planning
Region, demographic data shows that the only concentrated
area of lower
income and black
minority and hispanic
minority populations is in Danbury.
As Danbury transportation projects are developed, in cooperation
with the Conn DOT planning process special attention will
be paid to determine if there are any adverse impacts to these
populations. Towards this end a map
of relative incomes by neighborhood identifies
lower income areas of special concern to transportation planning.
Historically,
increased dependence upon automobiles and trucks led to a
"motor vehicle oriented" transportation system.
The increased personal mobility made possible by the mass
production of the automobile permitted the rapid spread of
residential population into suburban areas such as the Housatonic
Valley, and at relatively low densities. As a result of this
spread pattern of development, trip origins and destinations
have become widely dispersed.
However,
it is the concentration of motorized travel during certain
hours of the day and within certain transportation corridors
of the Region that creates the most obvious congestion problems.
The challenge of regional transportation planning is to provide
sufficient transportation system capacity, balanced among
all modes of transportation and reflecting current and future
development patterns, to meet future travel needs.
CONSULTATION
WITH OTHER AGENCIES TO
IMPROVE PLANNING AND MINIMIZE CONFLICTS
A goal of the regional transportation plan is to eliminate
or minimize conflicts with other agencies plans that impact
transportation. The objective is to compare plans, maps and
inventories developed by these agencies with the Regional
Transportation Plan and TIP to ensure compatibility.
It is
important for HVCEO's transportation planning to have as input
to the planning process the single factor data bases prepared
by other agencies, to reduce impacts and conflicts, and indeed
to determine the overall viability of some transportation
proposals. Therefore HVCEO will maintain on an ongoing basis
the following information and coordination:
--- TOWN
AND CITY PLANS. Coordination with municipal planning
commissions through their state required plans of conservation
and development. These plans show via both mapped format and
data inventories detailed environmental and cultural features
of each community. This key data source provides HVCEO’s
planning with valuable historic preservation, natural resource,
land use management and environmental protection information
that can directly affect the planning process.
To complete
the exchange, HVCEO will provide review comments on each draft
municipal plan as it is updated. The latest update of each
comprehensive municipal plan will be placed on file at the
HVCEO office.
---
CT DEP AND OTHER STATE AGENCY MAPPED DATA BASES.
HVCEO has ready access through its GIS program to state agency
data bases such as detailed wetlands maps, rare and endangered
species map, archaeological resources map, etc. The CT DEP
prepares this material for its own use, but also readily distributes
it to regional planning organizations and others. HVCEO has
a full time GIS Manager to properly manage and layer this
material over project plans.
CT DEP
is not seeking feedback on these maps. Rather, if the HVCEO
transportation planning program makes full and effective use
of these materials during transportation project planning,
then greater coordination will have been achieved when CT
DEP eventually reviews the draft improvement project.
--- RELATIONSHIP
TO THE CT DOT MASTER PLAN. The Connecticut Department
of Transportation maintains a State of Connecticut
Long Range Transportation Plan for the
improvement of transportation systems.
This plan utilizes a systems management approach to guide
the State in its investment in transportation activities.
It is an important influence upon future transportation investments
within the Housatonic Valley Region.
HVCEO's
Regional Transportation Plan reflects proposed State investments
and is also designed to influence the Conn DOT Master Transportation
Plan. The latest edition of the Conn DOT Plan is available
for review at HVCEO.
A
related policy setting process with a close relationship to
the Conn DOT Master Plan is maintained by the CT
Transportation Strategy Board.
---
RELATIONSHIP TO CT DOT PROJECT DEVELOPMENT UNIT. The
initial ideas for local traffic and safety improvements by
municipalities are submitted thru HVCEO to CT DOT’s
Project Development Unit for review. It is within this DOT
Unit that viability is largely determined.
During this process, CT DOT staff make extensive use of data
bases from other state departments, including hazardous waste
site data from CT DEP, historic homes and other locations
from the State Historic Preservation Officer, etc.
In project by project review meetings with Development Unit
staff, HVCEO staff and municipal officials discuss not just
traffic but also the impact of cultural and environmental
features upon the conceptual project. Then in the next project
development phase, these factors are brought up with the public
at a community meeting.
This cooperative HVCEO-DOT process is clearly in the spirit
of federal regulations requiring consultation and use of non-transportation
information in assessing project feasibility. Projects that
fail here do not proceed to the TIP.
---
RELATIONSHIP TO THE CT OPM CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT
PLAN. Another
SAFETEA-LU planning requirement is that HVCEO's Regional Transportation
Plan seek to promote consistency of its policies and suggested
transportation improvements with state growth plans. These
plans should be contrasted and dialogue encouraged so as to
identify and narrow differences, especially regarding each
plans growth policy map, which have close relationships to
highway capacity investments.
Specific
to Connecticut, this federally required process is already
encouraged by and paralleled by 2005 state legislation. The
2005 legislation requires regional planning organizations
to contrast their regional growth plans with the state plan
maintained by the CT Office of Policy and Management. HVCEO
has already
begun this process.

Excerpt
from State Plan legend, showing its
category definitions.
The HVCEO Plan makes use of similar definitions, for
development
and conservation
categories.
In
addition, and in coordination with the other regional agencies
and timing requested by Conn DOT, HVCEO will submit its Regional
Transportation Plan to CT OPM for review and comment, the
goal being to identify any differences relating to transportation
policy between the state and regional plan, and then seek
to address those differences.
---
RELATIONSHIP TO HVCEO'S REGIONAL CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT
POLICIES PLAN. Land use and transportation work together,
and indeed are "two sides of the same coin." HVCEO’s
draft Regional
Plan is a guide for municipal and regional infrastructure
growth and resultant land use change. Note that the plan category
descriptions specifically include direct relationships
to traffic and transit investment priority.
The regional growth plan supports this Regional Transportation
Plan, and is coordinated with state plans as required by both
state and federal regulations.
RELATIONSHIP
OF TRANSPORTATION TO ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PLANNING.
Many studies have shown that economic growth and development
depend heavily and positively on the growth and quality of
regional transportation infrastructure. As most of this infrastructure
is provided by the public sector, the effects of public investment
on transportation systems and improvement lead to enhancement
of private capital productivity.
An
efficient transportation infrastructure not only facilitates
economic growth, it influences business location decisions.
Firms can reach their output market at lower cost and their
workers enjoy lower transportation costs.
Workers in efficient transportation environments may not require
premiums that compensate them for lost time and increased
fuel consumption to induce them to commute to work.
Intermodal
transportation is important in both business firm and worker
location as well. Efficient transportation reduces costs for
employers and workers and is complementary to the production
process of firms and adds to the amenity value of households
in the region.

The
Housatonic Valley Region is one of the strongest economic
growth centers in Connecticut. The area’s diversified
economy is populated with corporate
names such as Duracell, Boehringer Ingelheim,
Pitney Bowes, Grolier, Kimberly Clark, GE Capital, Cedant
Mobility, MCI, Raytheon and other high tech, research and
development and manufacturing facilities well positioned to
participate in the evolving world economic order.
The
transportation systems serving the region have facilitated
this economic development. Route 7 bisects the region from
north to south, I-84 bisects from east to west, Metro North
provides commuter rail service on the Danbury Branch Line
and the Housatonic Railroad Company and Providence and Worcester
Railroad provide rail freight services.
I-84
connects the regional economy to the New York and New Jersey
markets. It also functions as the gateway to the I-84 corridor
economies centered on Waterbury and the Greater Hartford and
New Britain areas.
However,
I-84 needs to be expanded to meet the demands of current growth
and to facilitate future economic growth. Conn DOT has plans
to significantly
expand the carrying capacity of I-84. These plans
enjoy strong local and multi-regional support.
HVCEO
has adopted a comprehensive program of coordinated improvements
for Route
7 north of Danbury and Route
7 south of Danbury.
These recommendations also call for expanding inter-regional
mass transit connections and better connections between mass
transit stations and employment sites, utilizing the combined
resources of our area HART bus system, other bus systems and
Metropool.
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