RELATING AIR QUALITY
TO TRANSPORTATION PLANNING
The drafters of the original federal Clean Air Act believed its passage would result in healthful air. However, we have since learned that cleaning the air is more complex and difficult than expected. As a result, Congress passed the Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA) of 1990.

According to the standards established by the passage of the CAAA, the over 212,000 residents living within the Housatonic Valley Region suffer with dirty air. And since air pollution from automobiles is identified as a leading cause for the Region's failure to meet healthful air quality standards, transportation planning is linked to air quality improvement.

Proper transportation planning
assists with improving air quality.

But which proposed projects will pollute? To answer this question HVCEO relies upon the Connecticut Department of Transportation's (Conn DOT) annual "Air Quality Conformity Report" which determines if the major projects listed in the "Build" scenario for this Region conform with applicable Clean Air Act criteria.

But not all proposed projects are evaluated for air quality impacts. Smaller projects in this Region's Transportation Improvement Program have been judged by Conn DOT to be within the definitions of Appendix A of the Interim Conformity Guidance, which have negligible impact on trip distribution and highway capacity.

Technical evidence as to the conformance of federally funded transportation improvements in this Region is reviewed at least annually. Based upon the technical evidence, the HVCEO board must pass resolutions on this subject. The air quality issues of particulate matter and ozone are primary in this regard.

FEDERAL PLAN ELEMENTS
The HVCEO Regional Transportation Plan has been organized into easily usable sections in order to make it most accessible to public interest groups and transportation project opponents and advocates. Persons or organizations seeking to use it usually receive the excerpt of most use, not the entire lengthy document, although that is of course available.

The Plan is also updated in stages, with different traffic corridors and modal areas upgraded by technical studies each year. All such studies are publically available documents and are included on this list of publications.

In updating the Regional Transportation Plan it is important to meet plan criteria required by federal law. Guidelines for regional transportation planning under SAFETEA-LU require that minimum factors be considered in developing regional transportation plans. These requirements are incorporated throughout this document.

Many of the factors are topics already addressed by HVCEO for many years, others are newer, more modern emphasis areas. A summary of the current HVCEO Plan's conformance to the mandatory federal factors is as follows:

---- 1. Emphasize preservation of, and performance
improvement for, the existing transportation system.
Enhancing existing transportation facilities is a way to meet transportation needs. For many years this goal has been well integrated into the HVCEO Transportation Plan's projects and priorities.

For example, major corridors such as Route 6, Route 7 South, Route 7 North, Route 37 and Route 25 all have had HVCEO financed traffic improvement plans to upgrade capacity on existing roadways.

Also, HVCEO's long term support for the Route 7 Expressways North and South were dropped in favor of making more efficient use of the existing Route 7 roadway. Importantly, this factor is specifically incorporated into the current Plan's goals for establishing project priorities.

Studies that are part of the congestion management process will all seek to make best use of existing resources before proposing capacity expansions.

--- 2. Promote efficient system management and operation.
HVCEO participates with Conn DOT in identifying needs through use of the management systems required by federal legislation. This reference is for state maintained systems for highway pavement on state roads, bridges, highway safety, traffic congestion, for public transportation facilities and equipment, and for intermodal transportation facilities and systems. These data bases, under various names, are already well developed by Conn DOT.

Conn DOT has a good record in making such materials available to HVCEO where this material is utilized. The areas where complementing and localized research is most technically developed are traffic congestion and public transportation facilities, equipment and routing.

Preservation of rights-of-way for construction of future transportation projects, including identification of unused rights-of-way which may be needed for future transportation corridors and identification of those corridors for which action is most needed to prevent destruction or loss, is a regional transportation planning function.

The use of life-cycle costs in the design and engineering of bridges, tunnels, or pavement is also important. The HVCEO does not itself undertake such detailed design and engineering activities within its early stage planning studies. Rather, it requires good professional practice, which demands that good management practices such as life cycle costing are employed, when it approves design and engineering funds for projects on the TIP.

HVCEO will give consideration to future management and operations within the planning process, and also to security considerations within that process. All planning efforts will be designed to take into account the costs of operation, maintenance and preservation of the transportation system. HVCEO reports annually to Conn DOT on upcoming congestion management activities.

--- 3. Enhance modal integration and connectivity of the transportation system.
The goal is to continually improve integration across and between modes, for freight and people. The need for connectivity of roads within the metropolitan area with roads outside the metropolitan area is a critical issue.

As an area with ten distinct municipalities, this factor is addressed within each of the ten municipal segments of the regional traffic management plan. Functional classifications of roadways within MPO areas are coordinated interregionally by Conn DOT.

As Connecticut is an urban state with a statewide roadway functional classification process of long standing, there are at present no known connectivity issues between this region and the remainder of Connecticut and between this region and adjacent New York State.

The regional transportation plan makes use of policies and technical materials from neighboring regional transportation planning agencies COGCNV, GBRPA and SWRPA, as well as NWCCOG to the north and NYMTC to the west in New York State.

--- 4. Carefully evaluate major capital improvements.
Any such projects arising in the metropolitan transportation plan will be evaluated by basic federally required criteria including 1) alternatives analysis, 2) justification of project, 3) local financial commitment, 4) economic development potential, and 5) reliability of ridership and cost forecasts.

HVCEO is committed to working with the full federal review process and the National Environmental Policy Act, as will be required for its I-84 and rail improvement policies.

--- 5. Promote consistency of the transportation plan with
state and local planned growth and support economic vitality.
This action will support the economic vitality of the metropolitan area, especially by enabling global competitiveness, productivity and efficiency. As the HVCEO participates in both a federally defined planning program as well as state recognized land use planning activities, these concerns are fully integrated into the HVCEO planning processes.

Traffic volumes in the area are seasonally impacted by recreational traffic and recreational traffic generators in and near the Region, a fact which is considered in corridor technical and other studies. In addition,

Overall, HVCEO will coordinate its transportation planning with local and state plans for enhancing economic vitality. State statutes in Connecticut require that local, regional and state land use plans all be compared and coordinated. This coordination process by HVCEO will be integrated with HVCEO's transportation planning, a natural part of traditional "comprehensive planning."

--- 6. Continually integrate freight needs into the planning program.
These are incorporated into overall systems planning and development. For example, traffic projections used at HVCEO already consider the varieties of vehicle type, and design standards consider the dimensions of freight vehicles.

HVCEO rail passenger service policies support coordination and compatibility with freight needs and services.

Technical studies within the planning program recognize Routes 7, 25 and I-84 as major freight distribution routes.

--- 7. Participate in coordinated public transit human services transportation plan.
HVCEO will cooperate with Conn DOT and HART on this newly required planning.

--- 8. Increase accessibility and mobility options.
This policy applies to both people and freight and will remain a fundamental goal of MPO planning. For details, see various sections, such as Part 5 the "HART Bus Service Plan" and Part 7A4 “Goods Movement by Truck and Rail.”

HVCEO will coordinate with Conn DOT in the development of management systems as defined in Federal transportation legislation, especially the “Congestion Management Process” and development of related strategy documents.

--- 9. Increase transportation system safety and security.
The on-going planning regularly includes review of Conn DOT TASR and SLOSSS technical safety material and integration of it into municipal transportation project planning. Project decisions will then be based in part upon this data. However the actual safety rate data is exempt from public disclosure.

HVCEO also endorses the Conn DOT Strategic Highway Safety Plan. This statewide plan is required by SAFETEA-LU so that highway safety programs can be data driven to maximize the ability to set priority and getting the most benefit from each highway safety dollar.

This plan states that the key areas of emphasis for Connecticut are: traffic records and Information systems, roadway departure, pedestrians and bicycles, work zones, driver behavior involving alcohol, occupant protection and speeding, motorcycle safety, issues with commercial vehicles, and incident management.

The location of each accident on a Connecticut state road is
recorded, such that high rate roadway segments can be identified.

Thus safety, and not just capacity, will be fully integrated into the program. All past traffic studies have safety concerns fully integrated into the decision making and this will be continued by staff.

HVCEO has a significant history of use of highway safety data. Past reports are available under “Transportation” at www.hvceo.org These are shown by state route corridor, and serve as basic corridor management plans.

This particular task is in its broadest sense an ongoing reorganization of the HVCEO transportation planning data base, by municipality. (Long Range Goal: Accident data will be integrated with capacity deficiency data to form 10 municipal supplements to the Regional Transportation Plan. In turn, each supplement will be recognized by the local town plan).

Both HART and Conn DOT consistently include security features for buildings, vehicles, and property during their detailed project planning phases. As for roadway safety, extensive use of Conn DOT safety data is made in all roadway related decision making, although interested citizens are not allowed to then access the Conn DOT safety data upon which project recommendations that may significantly affect their neighborhoods are based.

HVCEO involves police department safety staffs to be part of its roadway corridor and other transportation studies.

As for modern security concerns, in its various studies, the staff will also address security issues of the highway system, including crime and terrorism, etc. in conjunction with requests for such assistance from Conn DOT or the CT Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security (DEMHS) .

This may include attention to vulnerability to intentional attack or natural disasters, and the associated evacuation procedures. As for evacuation procedures, HVCEO already has a formal arrangement for its transportation staff to assist CT DEMHS in this regard.

ENVIRONMENTAL MITIGATION
The consistency of transportation planning with applicable federal, state and local energy conservation programs, environmental goals, and objectives is incorporated into the current Plan's goals for establishing project priorities.

The regional transportation plan needs to take into account potential environmental impacts when adopting the plan. If impacts are found, then consideration is given to how such impacts might be mitigated.

The land use element of HVCEO's comprehensive plan is oriented towards the conservation of energy; the policy map of that element interacts with the priority setting process. HVCEO is also a long time supporter of ridesharing programs to reduce energy use.

Over many years, HVCEO has prepared corridor improvement plans as documents supportive of the recommendations in the overall Plan. The consistent methodology for these supporting technical documents is a projection of traffic conditions in each corridor such that investments are efficient and properly scaled. The HVCEO transportation planning program is able through this process to identify corridors of rapid traffic volume change.

As for improving the quality of life, distinct policy documents are maintained by the MPO for inventory, analysis, and recommendations on both bus and rail transit issues. For many years transit has been fully integrated into transportation policy and technical activities.

HVCEO's plans will include impact on environmental factors such as wetlands, watercourses, historic districts, etc. Air and noise analysis will be issues required for some projects in the design stage. Most environmental mitigation is detailed in the project design phase and HVCEO will encourage and support this activity.

Proposed roadway widenings near
wetlands require careful scrutiny and mitigation.

A major FHWA funded project in this Region that is a good example of intense environmental mitigation is the Brookfield Route 7 Bypass. There have been significant concerns as to impacts on wildlife, these concerns now fully addressed. A mitigation plan approved by state and federal environmental agencies was included.

The HVCEO transportation planning program will seek to identify the mitigation needs of projects recommended by the metropolitan transportation plan, in order to fully restore and maintain environmental functions.

Consultation as necessary will be undertaken with environmental protection agencies (including the CT DEP), wildlife management authorities, land management and historic preservation interests. This is more fully explained in the plan introduction, under the subtitle "Consultation to Minimize Conflicts."

HVCEO maintains a geographic information system and Map Center that supports its transportation planning. Readily available data layers include watersheds, wetlands, aquifers and rare and endangered species.

The HVCEO will encourage environmental mitigation by comparing potential projects to environmental constraint maps, state plan conservation and development categories, and historic resource inventories. And as noted in the next section we will include truck and rail freight interests in all transportation planning activities.

The upcoming environmental impact statement for widening I-84 will undoubtedly have a mitigation component. This study will be managed by Conn DOT. HVCEO as the MPO will provide input and in so doing follow its mitigation goals.

Transportation Plan Sections 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6- 7- 8