Contents
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1. Introduction --- 2.
Roadway System
3a. I- 84 ---
3b.
RT 7 South --- 3c.
RT 7 North
4. Projects by Municipality --- 5.
Bus Plan --- 6.
Rail Plan
Other Elements 7a, 7b,
7c, 7d,
7e
--- 8.
Resource Center
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 and
balance mobility options within the Region.

Long
range result of transportation
policy relying on only one transportation mode.
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, this 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 federal and state
governments have found it to be in the public's best interest
to promote regional solutions to transportation problems.
Since
1975, each urbanized area in the United States, including
eleven 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 underlying
physical urbanized area, as documented by the Census Bureau
map of federally defined urbanized
areas in Connecticut.
To
give the MPO designation some clout, HVCEO and the other qualifying
regional groups are granted partial control over the fiscal
decisions made by state transportation agencies for their
regions.
This
is achieved through control by the MPO 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 area's MPO.
To
insure the democratic nature of this power, voting MPO members
must be chief elected officials of local governments.
The goals that guide 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 with interagency 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.
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.


Indicator
of employed residents, by municipality,
who work in the Housatonic Valley Region,
with Danbury and New Milford in the lead.
See
map above in full detail.
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.
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.

Avoid uncoordinated growth.
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 pattern, to meet future travel needs.
CONSULTATION
TO IMPROVE
PLANNING AND MINIMIZE CONFLICTS
The goals of the Regional Transportation Plan seek to 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.
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.

Cover
of award winning Danbury City Plan.
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 geographic information
system electronic mapping 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.
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 CT DOT MASTER PLAN
The Connecticut Department of Transportation maintains a 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.
---
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 federal 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
completed this process.

Excerpt from State Plan legend.
---
RELATIONSHIP TO HVCEO'S REGIONAL
CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Land use and transportation work together, and indeed are
"two sides of the same coin." HVCEO’s 7/2009
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:
Development
Categories |
Water
and
Sewer Service |
Traffic
Capacity Investment |
Fixed
Route Transit Service |
Growth
Potential |
| 1.
Regional Center |
Serve
fully by public water and sewer |
First
Priority |
First
priority for intense service and intermodal transfer |
Mixed
uses,
highest densities |
| 2.
Near Central Area |
Priority
for service |
Second
priority |
Second
priority for intense service |
Mixed
uses, some housing at 3 or more units per acre |
| 3.
Primary Growth Area |
First
priority for service extensions from previous categories |
Third
priority |
Expansion
area for service |
Mixed
uses, some housing at 3 or more units/acre |
| 4.
Small Community Center |
On
site or community septic, no public sewers or water
for growth |
Shares
fourth priority |
Lower
priority |
Low
intensity mixed use, residential may be multi-family. |
5.
Suburban
Area |
On
site or community leaching field. No sewers for growth |
Shares
fourth priority |
No
fixed route service |
Almost
entirely residential |
| 6.
Semi-Rural Remote Area |
On
site or community leaching field. No sewers for growth |
Lowest
priority |
No
fixed route service |
Almost
entirely residential, density may be lower than carrying
capacity |
The regional growth plan supports this Regional Transportation
Plan, and is coordinated with state plans as required by both
state and federal regulations.
According
to the HVCEO Regional Plan a key to passenger rail planning
in the modern era, and an important scoring criteria in federal
rail improvement grants, is to encourage land use changes
in the vicinity of rail stations that will be supportive of
transit use. This concept is known as 'transit oriented development"
(TOD).
The Danbury
Branch Rail Line has the following TOD planning resources:
HVCEO
2009 BRANCH LINE TRANSIT
ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT OVERVIEW
HVCEO
2010 BETHEL RAIL STATION TRANSIT
ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT FEASIBILITY STUDY
CT
DOT 2010 TRANSIT ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT OVERVIEW

At
the request of Bethel, in 2010 HVCEO
prepared a feasibility study for transit oriented development
at Bethel Station. TOD potential was found to be favorable
here.
---
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.
CONGESTION
MANAGEMENT PROCESS
A congestion management process (CMP) is a federally required
monitoring and decision making tool at the heart of regional
transportation planning.
While not yet formally required of HVCEO due to its relatively
small population size, a CMP approach is maintained for Greater
Danbury as a matter of good professional practice.
The Regional
Transportation Plan lists needs and strategies to reduce congestion
on all modes of transportation. But how to best formulate
these proposed investments, then document resulting congestion
reduction as improvement funds are expended? The Congestion
Management Process defined herein is the guide.

A CMP
measures multi-modal transportation system performance, identifies
the causes of congestion, and assesses alternative actions
and priorities before making improvement recommendations.
The CMP also includes monitoring tools to then evaluate the
effectiveness of implemented actions.
A regional
CMP requires transportation decision making data collection
and monitoring systems, a broad range of strategies for addressing
congestion, performance measures identifying when action is
needed, and the setting of priorities as to which congestion
strategies will be most effective.
The five
distinct steps in the CMP process start with a statement of
objectives:
1. CONGESTION MANAGEMENT OBJECTIVES
The overall CMP goal is to correct the most severe congestion
problems, reduce the growth of congestion in the future, and
mitigating the impacts of congestion that cannot be eliminated.
The congestion
management strategies in this HVCEO Regional Transportation
Plan include operational improvements to target the most severe
congestion hotspots, incident management to reduce traffic
jams on expressways, and demand management to reduce demand
at key travel times.

Congestion
management objectives for the Housatonic Valley Region include:
- Implementation
of systems management techniques and demand management programs
that optimize use of existing infrastructure and investment
prior to making new investments.
- Improving
the safety of the traveling public through roadway engineering
upgrades and enhanced use of technology.
- Coordination of the Regional
Future Growth Map and the High
Traffic Volume Zoning District Map with transportation
planning to create communities that support transit and to
provide new opportunities for mixed
use and village type development.
- Increase
rail service opportunities for the movement of rail freight
through the Housatonic Region and Connecticut and optimize
use of the region's rail system for passenger service.
- Encourage
balanced, multi-modal solutions for congestion relief, including
ridesharing and vanpooling services through Metropool.
- Construct
new roadway capacity but only after the benefits available
from the other options have been exhausted.
2.
TRANSPORTATION NETWORK TO APPLY CMP
The CMP roadway network is defined as the larger roadways,
including all of I-84, Routes 7 and 25. In addition the principal
arterials, minor arterials and major collector roadways as
shown on the Roadway
Functional Classification Map.
Continuing
to other modes, the regional public bus transit services operated
by the Housatonic Area Regional Transit District are included
in the CMP, also rail passenger services and their related
parking and transit
oriented development. HART fixed routes are shown
on the HART Bus Route Map.
3.
PERFORMANCE MEASURES FOR PROJECT
FORMULATION AND FOLLOW-UP MONITORING
Roadway Volume to Capacity Ratios. As for
relative congestion on the area’s state roadways, the
traditional measure used to define congestion is the roadway
volume to roadway capacity (V/C) ratio.
A V/C
standard recommended by the adjacent South Western Regional
Planning Agency’s Congestion Mitigation Systems Plan
is that congestion occurs when the V/C ratio during peak periods
is at 0.9 or greater. In addition, the adjacent New York Metropolitan
Transportation Council identifies roadways with a V/C ratio
of between 0.8 and 1.0 as “congested” and roadways
with a V/C of greater than 1.0 as “severely congested.”
For volume
to capacity ratio monitoring, HVCEO will periodically map
Roadway High Volume to Capacity Ratios on
state roadways in the Region. The mapped data of existing
conditions will be extracted from Conn DOT’s 2008“Congestion
Screening and Monitoring Report.”
Categories mapped will be identical to those shown by the
nearby Central Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments, "At
Capacity V/C 1.00 to 1.29" and then "Over Capacity
1.30 and above."
High
Accident Rate Roadway Segments. The location of each
accident on a Connecticut state road is recorded, such that
unusually high accident rate roadway segments can be identified.
Thus relative safety, not just volume to capacity measurements,
is part of the on-going HVCEO CMP evaluation.
The reasoning
is that high accident frequencies relate closely to inadequate
roadway geometry and lack of signalization, indicating locations
where congestion is often present or building.
As in
the past, traffic safety concerns will remain an integral
element in HVCEO’s corridor by corridor and issue by
issue Transportation
Management Plans. Improvement project formulation
and later phase performance monitoring will be based in part
upon this data.
For performance
monitoring, the Ratio
of Accident Rate to Expected Accident Rate is
mapped, using Conn DOT’s Traffic Accident Surveillance
Report base data. However specific details as to roadway safety
data by location must remain exempt from public disclosure
in accordance with Conn DOT rules.

Congestion
on Public Bus Service. As for regional public bus
transit services operated by the Housatonic Area Regional
Transit District, congestion will be as reported by periodic
systems efficiency evaluations, the latest in 2010.
Congestion
on Rail Passenger Service. As for access to and operation
of rail passenger services, rail passenger car loadings have
not yet reached the point where capacity is exceeded.
The reason
is that this Region includes only the northern end, lesser
volume use, portion of the Danbury Branch Line. The AM commuter
boarding load is fully seated before congestion arises south
of the regional boundary, and the reverse pattern favors our
area during the afternoon peak.
However,
volume to capacity of railroad station parking lots will be
used as a valid measure of congestion for rail system access.
This performance measure is available thru Conn DOT.
4.
CMP TOOLS TO FORMULATE
IMPROVEMENT ALTERNATIVES
Corridor Transportation Management Plans.
To best organize its performance monitoring HVCEO will provide
a map of existing and proposed Corridor Traffic Management
Plans. The legend will include two categories, one
for those corridor plans completed 1990 to 1999 and another
for those completed or in progress after 2000.
HVCEO’s
corridor management plans may include such measures as:
a. Identification of causes of recurring and non-recurring
congestion, including data such as travel time and speed using
probe vehicle equipped with a GPS devices, documentation of
average speeds below posted limits, time of day parameters,
such as variations in V/C, vehicle miles traveled (VMT), average
speed during peak and off-peak hours, etc.
b.
Multi-modal operational and management strategies to improve
performance.
c. Appropriate options as found in “CMP Toolbox”
resource reports.
HVCEO
will use such data to identify choke points resulting in time-of-day
or spot congestion and examine incident patterns to identify
locations that may be in need of operational improvements.
Roadway
Corridor Access Management Plans. To best organize
its performance monitoring HVCEO will provide a map of Roadway
Corridor Driveway Management Plans. The map legend
will contain two categories, one for those completed 1990
to 1999 and the other for those completed or in progress after
2000.
This mapped
data will be used to help assess these access management plans
in terms of covering additional roadway mileage and frequency
of updating.
HART Bus Service Plans. The HART
Bus Service Plan Chapter of the Regional Transportation
Plan will be periodically updated and then evaluated from
the perspective of the CMP. Causes of congestion will be identified
and addressed.
Rail
Passenger Service Plan. The Rail
Passenger Service Plan Chapter of the Regional
Transportation Plan will be periodically updated and then
evaluated from the perspective of the CMP. Causes of congestion
will be identified and addressed.
5.
MONITORING OVERALL
EFFECTIVENESS OF STRATEGIES
The CMP data monitoring and performance measures above will
be utilized to document reductions in congestion and mobility
enhancement over time.
Relevant “before and after” studies may be undertaken.
The policy map for Roadway
Expansion from 2 to 4 Lanes will be reassessed.

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.
Contents
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