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, state and regional transportation planning is formally 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 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 have (within the definitions of Appendix A of the Interim Conformity Guidance) negligible impact on trip distribution and highway capacity.

Technical evidence as to the conformance of proposed federally funded transportation improvements in this Region is reviewed at least annually.

Based upon the technical evidence, the HVCEO board must endorse resolutions on this subject. Levels of particulate matter and ozone are primary in this regard.

CLIMATE CHANGE REDUCTION

Overview. Virtually all climate experts now agree that the burning of fossil fuels to generate electricity and power vehicles has led to increased atmospheric levels of heat trapping gases, primarily carbon dioxide, that induce global warming.

In overview, the United States represents only 5 percent of the world’s population but consumes about 35 percent of its energy. Not surprisingly, our country also generates about 24 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions.

In addition, the United States has the highest per capita carbon dioxide emissions in the world. No wonder the term "reducing your carbon footprint" has entered popular usage.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency the USA's industrial sector uses 39 percent of total energy, followed by the transportation sector at 27 percent. The residential sector uses 19 percent, and the commercial sector at 15 percent, for a total of 100 percent.

As the land use mix of the Housatonic Valley Region is somewhat of a microcosm of the USA as a whole, in that it has urban, suburban and rural areas with significant industry, housing and an interstate roadway, the national percentages above for total energy use can serve as estimates for energy expenditure by sector in the Greater Danbury Area.

The United States also uses more energy per capita for transportation than citizens of any other industrialized country. Connecticut's Housatonic Valley Region, with its relatively prosperous households and minimal public transit, is certainly a prime contributor to that sobering statistic.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists “the characteristic climate of the Northeast has begun to change dramatically. Between 1970 and 2000 alone, summer temperatures rose about one degree Fahrenheit and winter temperatures rose nearly 4 degrees Fahrenheit.

Spring is arriving sooner, summers are growing hotter, and winters are becoming warmer and less snowy.”

Again according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, carbon dioxide concentrations have risen to their highest levels in more than 650,000 years. This group predicts that in a higher-emission scenario, as shown below, far less of the Northeast will experience a typical snow season toward the end of the century:

The red line in the map shows the area of the Northeast that historically
had at least a dusting of snow on the ground for at least 30 days
in the average year. The white area shows the projected
retreat of this snow cover by the 21st century's end.

Transportation Control Strategies. According to Connecticut DEP “State efforts to address climate change consider the substantial contribution of mobile sources (transportation) to the state’s total annual emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. The Connecticut Global Warming Solutions Act calls for a minimum of an 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from 2001 by 2050.

Success in achieving this goal will require draconian measures directed at stationary, area and mobile sources, of which mobile sources will be a significant focus.

There are many mobile source options available that have not yet been fully realized, but their implementation will require a change in the transportation culture of Connecticut.”

HVCEO as the federally designated regional transportation planning agency for Greater Danbury will assist with development of transportation related climate change prevention strategies.

The task is to assist in reducing vehicle miles of travel in the Region by 3% below anticipated 2020 levels through identification of innovative transportation management, including:

--- Encouraging transit, bicycle and pedestrian components
for the strategic transportation network.

--- Participate in feasibility studies for congestion pricing and using location
efficient mortgages to encourage shorter commutes.

--- Encouraging inclusion of climate modeling data in repair and
replacement of transportation infrastructure.

--- Implement rail service between Danbury and New Milford.

--- Encourage acquisition of vehicles meeting stringent
emissions standards and using cleaner fuels.

As for this Region's Housatonic Area Regional Transit District (HART) acquiring such vehicles, HART staff offers the following 11/2010 report:

The new HART buses purchased in 2008 all have advanced anti-pollution control technology including particulate traps in compliance with EPA regulations. And all new HART transit buses are equipped with bike racks to promote that non-fuel mode.

Some may have noticed that those vehicles in fixed route service have tailpipes that look like vacuum cleaner attachments, this to help disperse the extreme heat that is generated when particulates are burned off.

HART, like most systems operating in Connecticut, uses ultra low sulfur diesel fuel for its fleet.

Small and large buses are now produced as diesel-electric and gasoline-electric hybrids, but at a significant cost premium; as much as $200,000 additional in capital cost for a full sized bus. Public perception of hybrid vehicles has been positive.

In some operating environments, hybrids show savings in fuel and reduced maintenance costs on some components such as brakes. Long term, these savings may be balanced with battery replacement and disposal costs.

Particulate emissions are not significantly different in hybrid versus traditional fossil-fueled buses equipped with modern anti-pollution technology.

Regardless, there are more and more transit properties moving to hybrid technology. This may drive an industry-wide shift by bus manufacturers, like the recent move from high floor to low floor bus designs.

It would therefore be worthwhile for HART to purchase one or a few transit vehicles in diesel/electric or gasoline/electric hybrid configuration to better understand the operational and financial impacts of this technology.

HART is not considering use of compressed natural gas or propane fuels. There are no public bus systems in Connecticut currently operating on compressed natural gas or propane. Compressed natural gas is not even an option in the Housatonic Region due to the lack of fueling stations.

Both fuel types require a significant capital investment for vehicle storage and maintenance owing to the nature of these fuels and potential explosion hazards.

CT TRANSIT operates five hydrogen fuel cell/hydrogen hybrids at its Hartford location. These vehicles, purchased at a cost of over $2 million each, are fueled at United Technologies and have United Technologies fuel cells. Special infrastructure to house and maintain these vehicles is required.

Land Use Control Strategies. The book “Energy Planning and Urban Form” by geographer Susan Owens found that the single most important factor affecting the relationship of urban form and energy requirements for transportation is the physical separation of activities. This is determined by both density and the degree to which mixing of land uses is permitted.

Overview of zoning patterns in southwestern
Connecticut, with the Housatonic Valley Region at left

Commercial and industrial zones are combined as red. Orange, buff and pale
yellow indicate descending intensities of residential zoning. Before 1920 there
was little control of the mixing of land uses. Then from 1920 until 2000 uses
were forcefully separated by zoning. Since 2000 the trend of some
modest remixing under controlled conditions has accelerated.

In other words, the density allowed by local land use regulations, coupled with the degree to which the intermixing of selected land uses is permitted, are prime determinants of how much energy their community uses.

--- Thus this HVCEO Regional Transportation Plan’s climate change reduction policy is closely linked to the HVCEO Regional Conservation and Development Policies Plan to promote more mixing of land uses.

The municipal land use configuration endorsed by a town or city plan and reflected in zoning has a big impact on transportation patterns and resulting energy use. According to a discussion of planning in Connecticut's 2005 Climate Change Action Plan:

"Residential and commercial development in suburban and exurban areas increases total vehicle miles of travel as distances between homes and jobs increase.

Low density development cannot support public transportation, so single occupancy vehicles are often the only practical travel option. This scattering of development in growing areas is often called sprawl."

--- Thus this HVCEO Regional Transportation Plan’s climate change reduction policy is closely linked to the HVCEO Regional Conservation and Development Policies Plan to more forcefully concentrate development. See Concentration Policy. See Concentration Map.

--- HVCEO's overall comprehensive strategy for curbing climate change, of which transportation management is but one component, is found in the Curb Global Warming section of the 2009 Regional Conservation and Development Policies Plan.

--- Other climate change action plan ideas are available at the CT Climate Change site.

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 must 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 project revised, or cancelled.

The HVCEO comprehensive plan is oriented towards the conservation of energy. The growth policy map of that plan interacts with the priority setting process.

Over many years, HVCEO has prepared corridor improvement plans 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.

Distinct policy documents are maintained by HVCEO for inventory, analysis, and recommendations on both bus and rail transit issues. Transit has been fully integrated into transportation policy and technical study activities.

HVCEO's plans will include impact on environmental factors such as wetlands, watercourses, historic districts, etc. Air and noise analysis will be 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 recently completed Brookfield Route 7 Bypass. There had 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 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.

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.

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 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 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 require that minimum factors be considered in developing regional transportation plans. These requirements are incorporated throughout this document.

Many of the requirements 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 was revised 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 makes 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 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.

HVCEO has been a participant in obtaining funds for the soon to be constructed centralized traffic control system on the Danbury Branch. This investment is to promote both efficiency and safety.

Danbury Branch rail service will be
electronically managed from Grand Central Terminal.

This project will replace the manual throwing of switches, and allow Branch trains to be visible in the Grand Central Terminal control room. Scheduling and performance will be improved. This electronic technology is already in operation on the parallel Harlem Line in New York State.

--- 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 included.

As an area with ten distinct municipalities, this factor is addressed within each of the ten municipal segments of the regional transportation plan. Functional classifications of roadways 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. HVCEO staff meets with NYMTC staff semi-annually.

--- 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 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 regional 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.

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 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 needs 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 required planning element.

--- 8. Increase accessibility and mobility options.
This policy applies to both people and freight and will remain a fundamental goal of HVCEO. 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.
On-going planning regularly includes review of Conn DOT TASR 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 accident rate 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 Publications at www.hvceo.org These are shown by state route corridor, and serve as basic corridor management plans.

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 decisions.

HVCEO involves police department safety staffs in 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.