C-1 

APPENDIX C 

WASHINGTON STATE TRANSPORTATION FRAMEWORK 

FOR GIS (WA-TRANS) 

Prepared by Tamilee Griffin, WA-Trans Project Manager, Washington State 

Department of Transportation 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

Washington State Department of Transportation (DOT) is planning to develop a multi-modal 

statewide transportation network, including information on roads, railroads, light rail, non-motorized 

transportation routes, aviation, and ferries and ports, for use by the entire department as well as all 

public utilities and government agencies in the state. This project will improve public safety, 

intergovernmental coordination, and economic development. The DOT has identified and quantified 

specific benefits. The financial analysis shows an annualized return on investment of 10.91% over a 

20-year project life. The likelihood of sound financial performance coupled with significant strategic 

benefits has prompted staff to recommend that the DOT fund a pilot data compilation effort. 

Washington DOT's mission is to keep people and business moving by operating and improving the 

state’s transportation systems vital to taxpayers and communities. WA-Trans will support this 

mission by providing a seamless, statewide transportation location-based dataset that includes the 

best information available about roads, railroads, airports, ferry terminals and routes, port facilities, 

and non-motorized transportation routes such as bike paths and horse trails. The data will be used to 

improve transportation planning, analysis and design capabilities not only for WSDOT but also for 

local and regional organizations across the state. Better transportation planning will ultimately lead 

to better transportation infrastructure and more effective utilization of existing resources. 

Benefitted organizations include: Puget Sound Regional Council, multiple county governments, 

Sound Transit, County Road Administration Board (CRAB), a U.S. Bureau of Census Regional 

Office, Washington Department of Natural Resources, and Washington Department of Fish and 

Wildlife. Nineteen different organizations contributed to the case study. Excluded from this analysis 

due to resource limitations, but of equal or greater value are the benefits to emergency management 

related applications. 

In order to integrate data from local, state, federal, and tribal government sources, the scope of the 

WA-Trans project includes: 

• Complete development of the statewide spatial database and related data standards. 

• Implement supporting applications that provide access to the spatial database and support 

integration of disparate datasets. 
C-2 

• Develop interagency agreements in support of data sharing to formalize collaborative data 

collection and maintenance.

The strategic analysis addresses the relationship of the project to the organization’s mission and 

goals. It presents costs and benefits that cannot be quantified and are therefore ignored by the 

financial analysis. Sometimes a project has such significant strategic value that it is worthwhile even 

if the financial analysis is not persuasive. Examples for this case study could fall in the areas of 

emergency management and response, cross-governmental communication, and public 

communication. Additionally, WA-Trans is identified as a part of the state enterprise architecture and 

as a strategic data resource. 

The following case study demonstrates the robustness and effectiveness of the developed ROI 

toolset. It includes separate financial analyses from a wide variety of agencies that will share data 

and services. These separate analyses are then consolidated to provide an overall project financial 

analysis (from the perspective of a state taxpayer rather than the perspective of a single agency). 

From the sole perspective of Department of Transportation, the financial return on this investment 

appears small (NPV of $255,000 and ROI below 1%). But when the financial impact on all 

participating agencies is considered, the project shows a very healthy return (NPV of over $17 

million and ROI of nearly 11%). The WA-Trans project furthers the mission of WSDOT and is 

projected to be a financially sound investment for taxpayers. 

This case study includes six separate financial analyses based on the Financial Details-Future20.xls 

template. These agency and group-specific analyses are consolidated using the Multi-participant 

Summary—Future20.xls template. 

PROJECT COST AND SCHEDULE 

The present value of the remaining project investment is estimated to be roughly $8 million. The 

investment analyis considers a 20-year project life. At present, the original data compilation efforts 

are estimated to take five years. 

The ultimate schedule of activities will depend on the availability of funding for the data compilation 

effort. 

FINANCIAL ANALYSIS 

The following productivity benefits (labor savings) have been identified, quantified, and provided for 

the financial analysis: 
C-3 

Job Category Benefit Description Quantified Value 

Transportation Planning 

Specialist 4 

DOT 

Reduce amount of time spent 

providing data to local 

partners. 

16 hours per month for 6 

regions = 1152 hours saved 

per year 

Transportation Planning 

Specialist 4 

DOT 

Reduce amount of time spent 

gathering data to scope a 

project. 

70 projects per year @ 3 

hours per project times 6 

regions = 1260 hours per 

year 

Transportation Planning 

Specialist 4 

DOT 

Reduce the time needed to 

update statewide road maps 

by providing data directly 

from WA-Trans. 

209 hours per year for a 

variety of maps produced 

Transportation Planning 

Specialist 3 

WSDOT 

Eliminate research/data 

acquisition time for Highway 

Usage Branch of 

Transportation Data Office to 

acquire usage data on nonstate routes. 

80 hours per year 

Transportation Planning 

Specialist 3 

WSDOT 

Increase efficiency (by 

reducing number of county 

data sources) for updating 

county data in the Highway 

Performance Management 

System. 

70 hours per year 

Transportation Planning 

Specialist 2 

WSDOT 

Increase efficiency (by 

reducing number of data 

sources) for updating 

functional classes for the 

Freight and Goods System. 

75 hours per year 
C-4 

Job Category Benefit Description Quantified Value 

Transportation Planning 

Specialist 2 

WSDOT 

DOT: Eliminate manual 

(spreadsheet) data 

manipulation activities 

associated with using CRAB 

mobility data to update 

functional classification 

system. 

560 hours per year 

Transportation Planning 

Specialist 2 

WSDOT 

DOT: Eliminate manual data 

collection and manipulation 

activities associated with 

maintenance of functional 

class data in the Highway 

Performance Management 

System 

67 hours per year 

Transportation Planning 

Technician 3 

WSDOT 

Eliminate research and data 

acquisition time for Highway 

Usage Branch of 

Transportation Data Office to 

acquire usage data on nonstate routes. 

80 hours per year 

Transportation Planning 

Technician 3 

Washington Utilities and 

Transportation Commission 

Reduce time needed to 

resolve the current low match 

rate on geocoding in the field 

as well as time spent 

responding to complaints 

about incorrect addresses 

50 hours per year 

Transportation Planning 

Technician 2 

WSDOT 

Eliminate need for Collision 

Data and Analysis Branch of 

TDO to review each accident 

report to determine 

jurisdiction. 

5,240 hours per year 

(roughly 3 full time 

equivalent positions) 
C-5 

Job Category Benefit Description Quantified Value 

Transportation Engineer 4 

WSDOT 

Increase efficiency (by 

reducing number of county 

data sources) for updating 

county data in the Highway 

Performance Management 

System. 

40 hours per year 

Transportation Engineer 4 

WSDOT 

Eliminate manual data 

collection and manipulation 

activities associated with 

maintenance of functional 

class data in the Highway 

Performance Management 

System 

38 hours per year 

Transportation Engineer 4 

Washington Utilities and 

Transportations Commission: 

Eliminate time spent 

resolving incorrect address 

data and geocoding problems 

when doing pipeline 

inspections in the field. 

240 hours per year 

Puget Sound Regional 

Council Senior GIS Analyst 

Eliminate the need to create 

and maintain a multi-county 

dataset to serve as the base 

for all modeling work. 

2774 hours per year 

Sound Transit Customer 

Service Rep 

Via the customer service 

application supported by 

WA-Trans data, eliminate 

four hours per week 

responding to customer calls 

(4 x 52 = 208 hours) 

208 hours per year 

Sound Transit GIS 

Coordinator 

Eliminate the need to order, 

download and archive county 

data for three counties 

27 hours per year 
C-6 

Job Category Benefit Description Quantified Value 

Sound Transit GIS 

Coordinator 

Via the customer service 

application supported by 

WA-Trans data, eliminate 2 

hours per week responding to 

customer calls (2 x 52 = 104 

hours) 

104 hours per year 

WMS Band 1 Increase efficiency of Freight 

and Goods Transportation 

System Report Update 

Process. 

10 hours per year 

Transportation Planning 

Specialist 5 

Gather City Data for use in 

the Freight and Goods 

Transportation System 

Report. 

16 hours per year 

GIS Analyst – Development 

Department of Natural 

Resources 

Provide an increased level of 

service by responding to 

research requests with WATrans data. 

1⁄4 FTE per year 

GIS Analyst – Development 

Washington Utilities and 

Transportation Commission 

Eliminate the processing 

time to manipulate purchased 

data. 

1/100 FTE per year 

GIS Analyst – Cartographer 

Department of Natural 

Resources 

Reduce time needed to 

compile trail and forest road 

data for public lands 

quadrangle map series – 2.5 

weeks/map x 10 maps/yr = 

25 weeks 

1⁄2 FTE per year 
C-7 

Job Category Benefit Description Quantified Value 

U.S. Census Bureau 

Geographer 

Reduce data collection 

workload for the decennial 

TIGER and MAF (master 

address file) updates. 

8528 hours per 10 year cycle 

U.S. Census Bureau 

Geographer 

Reduce street name and 

address data collection 

workload (by reducing 

number of data sources). 

12688 hours per 10 year 

cycle 

Productivity benefits were also modeled for typical medium/large counties and typical small counties 

as shown in the following table. 

Job Category Benefit Description Quantified Value 

Typical Med/Large County 

GIS Specialist 

Eliminate county transfers of 

data to city governments: 29 

medium/large counties x 1 

hour per transmittal x 12 

transmittals per year 

348 hours per year 

Typical Med/Large County 

GIS Specialist 

Reduce map development 

and maintenance 

requirements for the new 

Washington/Oregon 

Regional Transportation 

COG (2 medium counties x 

140 hours to develop) + (2 

medium counties x 24 hours 

per year to maintain) 

280 hours per year to 

develop 

48 hours per year to maintain 
C-8 

Job Category Benefit Description Quantified Value 

Typical Med/Large County 

GIS Specialist 

For dense, fast-growing 

counties (King, Pierce, 

Snohomish, Clark, and 

Spokane): Eliminate the need 

to gather data from 

neighboring local 

governments to support 

regional business needs. (40 

hours per year per county x 

5) 

200 hours per year 

Typical Med/Large County 

GIS Specialist 

For dense, fast-growing 

counties (King, Pierce, 

Snohomish, Clark, and 

Spokane): Eliminate the need 

to maintain border city data: 

(200 hours per county x 5) 

1000 hours per year 

Typical Med/Large County 

GIS Specialist 

For dense, fast-growing 

counties (King, Pierce, 

Snohomish, Clark and 

Spokane): Eliminate the need 

to edge-match to bordering 

counties: (340 hours per 

county x 5) 

1700 hours per year 

Typical Small County GIS 

Specialist 

Eliminate county transfers of 

data to state and federal 

agencies: (10 small counties 

x 1 hour per transmittal x 20 

transmittals per year) 

200 hours per year 

Typical Small County GIS 

Specialist 

Eliminate need to develop 

border state (Oregon, Idaho) 

centerline data for various 

maps: (7 small counties x 3 

hours map x 10 maps per 

year) 

210 hours per year 
C-9 

Job Category Benefit Description Quantified Value 

Typical Small County GIS 

Specialist 

Eliminate county transfers of 

data to city governments: 10 

small counties x 1 hour per 

transmittal x 12 transmittals 

per year 

120 hours per year 

Typical Small County GIS 

Specialist 

Reduce map development 

and maintenance 

requirements for the new 

Washington/Oregon 

Regional Transportation 

COG: (2 small counties x 

140 hours to develop) + (2 

small counties x 24 hours per 

year to maintain) 

280 hours per year to 

develop 

48 hours per year to maintain 

Other financial anticipated benefits include: 

• The WSDOT Planning Office will no longer need contracts to acquire data for transportation 

planning and scoping projects. This will save $15,000 to $20,000 per project. There are 

usually two projects per year. 

• WSDOT can avoid the $30,000 annual subscription for commercial centerline data for 30,000 

miles of city roads not covered by CRAB. 

• The WSDOT Construction Office will enjoy more efficient data acquisition by contractors. 

This will save roughly $130 per project. WSDOT anticipates 80 projects per year through 

2015 and 50 projects per year thereafter. 

• The WSDOT Construction Office’s contractors will no longer need to merge datasets for 

large area projects. This will save $600 per project. WSDOT anticipates 25 such projects per 

year through 2015 and 15 projects per year thereafter. 

• Local governments will benefit from reduced time to compile regional incident maps. 

Assuming 20 local government incidents per year and a compilation cost of $1,400 per local 

government incident, this comes to $28,000 in annual savings. 
C-10 

• Local governments will enjoy lower street data collection costs charged by contractors for 

various projects. It is projected that 45 local governments will save an average of $5,000 per 

year in contract costs. 

• City and county contractors will be able to automate point placement (geocoding), providing 

a savings of roughly $1,200 per project (for an average of two projects per year). 

• City and county contractors will no longer need to assign road attributes and cost values for 

routing projects, and they will enjoy improved route analysis efficiency. This is projected to 

provide a savings of $3,300 per year. 

• Sound Transit can eliminate $400 per year in data purchases. 

• Sound Transit can eliminate contract costs for cleaning data after downloads, geocoding, 

basemap maintenance, and clipping to combine datasets. Savings are projected to be $65 per 

hour x 157 hours per year. 

• Various state agencies can avoid the annual cost of purchasing commercial centerline data for 

city and county roads. This will provide annual savings of $7,000 to the State Employment 

Security Division, $7,000 to the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission, and 

$20,000 to the Washington State Patrol. 

The preliminary financial analysis for the WA-Trans project shows an overall net present value of 

$13.4 million and an annualized return on investment of 8.25%. Breakeven is anticipated in 2014. 

Because WSDOT is funding the bulk of this investment, its internal net present value is much smaller 

than that of other participants, who will reap the benefits of the shared data for a relatively small 

contribution of staff time. 

The table below summarizes the project value for each participant or participant group. 

Participant NPV ROI Breakeven 

WSDOT $90,929 0.06% 2026 

Various State Agencies $1,756,559 2067.76% 2009 

Cities and Counties $8,372,271 74.16% 2010 

PSRC $3,445,756 978.62% 2007 

Sound Transit $258,167 1397.57% 2008 
C-11 

Participant NPV ROI Breakeven 

U.S. Census Bureau $905,370 2480.35% 2010 

The DOT has prepared a preliminary financial analysis to compare these initial benefit estimates with 

the current cost and schedule projections. This draft analysis shows a $17.4 million gain (net present 

value), reflecting an average annual gain of roughly 10.64% (return on investment). The following 

table summarizes this preliminary analysis. 

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Cash Flows for All Participants

Costs (Future Value) ($593,507) ($1,548,678) ($1,736,640) ($1,096,782) ($272,159)

Benefits (Future Value) $57,192 $1,561,574 $1,746,123 $1,311,710 $1,345,686 

Present Value Multiplier: 100.0% 97.6% 95.3% 93.0% 90.8%

Current Values

Annual Project Costs ($593,507) ($1,511,805) ($1,654,927) ($1,020,291) ($247,150)

Cumulative Costs ($593,507) ($2,105,311) ($3,760,239) ($4,780,529) ($5,027,680)

Annual Project Benefits $57,192 $1,524,394 $1,663,964 $1,220,230 $1,222,031 

Cumulative Benefits $57,192 $1,581,586 $3,245,550 $4,465,779 $5,687,810 

Cumulative Net Benefits ($536,315) ($523,726) ($514,689) ($314,750) $660,130 

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Cash Flows for All Participants

Costs (Future Value) ($278,150) ($284,292) ($246,782) ($252,139) ($257,630)

Benefits (Future Value) $1,475,719 $1,538,083 $1,630,838 $1,727,276 $1,647,337 

Present Value Multiplier: 88.6% 86.5% 84.5% 82.5% 80.5%

Current Values

Annual Project Costs ($246,577) ($246,021) ($208,476) ($207,930) ($207,400)

Cumulative Costs ($5,274,256) ($5,520,277) ($5,728,753) ($5,936,683) ($6,144,082)

Annual Project Benefits $1,308,207 $1,331,028 $1,377,694 $1,424,421 $1,326,153 

Cumulative Benefits $6,996,017 $8,327,045 $9,704,739 $11,129,160 $12,455,313 

Cumulative Net Benefits $1,721,761 $2,806,768 $3,975,987 $5,192,478 $6,311,231 
C-12 

2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

Cash Flows for All Participants

Costs (Future Value) ($263,258) ($269,027) ($274,941) ($281,002) ($287,214)

Benefits (Future Value) $1,688,255 $1,730,196 $1,773,186 $1,817,251 $1,862,417 

Present Value Multiplier: 78.6% 76.7% 74.9% 73.1% 71.4%

Current Values

Annual Project Costs ($206,884) ($206,384) ($205,899) ($205,427) ($204,970)

Cumulative Costs ($6,350,967) ($6,557,351) ($6,763,250) ($6,968,677) ($7,173,647)

Annual Project Benefits $1,326,734 $1,327,320 $1,327,912 $1,328,508 $1,329,110 

Cumulative Benefits $13,782,047 $15,109,367 $16,437,278 $17,765,786 $19,094,896 

Cumulative Net Benefits $7,431,080 $8,552,016 $9,674,028 $10,797,109 $11,921,249 

2022 2023 2024 2025 2026

Cash Flows for All Participants

Costs (Future Value) ($293,582) ($300,109) ($306,799) ($313,657) ($320,686)

Benefits (Future Value) $2,000,300 $2,050,042 $2,137,112 $2,227,261 $2,087,587 

Present Value Multiplier: 69.7% 68.0% 66.4% 64.8% 63.3%

Current Values

Annual Project Costs ($204,526) ($204,095) ($203,677) ($203,272) ($202,879)

Cumulative Costs ($7,378,172) ($7,582,267) ($7,785,944) ($7,989,216) ($8,192,094)

Annual Project Benefits $1,393,521 $1,394,170 $1,418,779 $1,443,422 $1,320,692 

Cumulative Benefits $20,488,417 $21,882,587 $23,301,366 $24,744,788 $26,065,480 

Cumulative Net Benefits $13,110,245 $14,300,320 $15,515,422 $16,755,572 $17,873,385 

SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS 

If agencies external to WSDOT choose not to take advantage of WA-Trans data, WSDOT’s 

investment will still provide a positive net present value, albeit a small one. 

If data development contract costs are double what WSDOT has anticipated ($5 million instead of the 

projected $2.5 million), WSDOT will not break even, but the project as a whole will still offer a 

better than 5% return on investment to taxpayers. 

If the data development effort takes longer than expected, such that all project benefits are delayed 

until 2011, the project will still have an annualized return on investment of 7.25% and a net present 

value of close to $12 million.
C-13 

STRATEGIC ANALYSIS 

Common benefits from WA-TRANS can be summarized as follows: 

• It will provide a common foundation for the development of state-wide disaster management 

plans related to evacuation, transportation of fuel and other emergency supplies, and critical 

infrastructure protection. Better plans will improve the state’s disaster preparedness and 

response. 

• It will improve the quality of the State’s accident information, which will in turn improve the 

quality of the DOT’s decisions about where to invest limited capital improvement dollars. By 

targeting road network improvements to the areas that are truly the most critical, the sState 

anticipates it can reduce the frequncy and severity of accidents per capita. 

• A common (shared) transportation map will improve coordination between local emergency 

responders. This will facilitate dispatch and reduce extra-jurisdictional response times to 

incidents that require the cooperative efforts of multiple local governments. 

• A common law enforcement landbase will enable law enforcement agencies at all levels of 

government to share data and collaborate more effectively. This will improve the quality of 

crime pattern analysis and should ultimately reduce crime. 

WA-TRANS will also improve inter-governmental coordination and planning by providing a 

common framework for the analysis of current and future land uses, traffic patterns, and development 

trends. 

In addition to supporting state-wide coordination, the WA-TRANS dataset will benefit each 

participating agency. By providing cities, counties, and other government agencies with a robust, 

accurate street network, the DOT will enable these outside organizations to develop beneficial GIT 

applications with minimal investment in data. Since the data investment is typically the most 

expensive part of a GIT project, the agencies that use the WA-TRANS data will enjoy significantly 

higher returns on their GIT investments than would otherwise be possible. From the perspective of 

state taxpayers who fund not only WSDOT but also these additional government agencies, this 

presents the opportunity for a significant return on the combined investments of WA-TRANS and the 

GIT projects it will support statewide. 

Finally, WA-TRANS will support economic development by making the state more attractive to the 

business community. The integrated state-wide road network will facilitate demographic and traffic 

analysis, site selection, advertising planning, and other activities essential to retailers and many other 

types of businesses. Also, the improved level of interagency communication will supported by WATRANS will allow local governments to be more responsive to all customers, including the 

development community and businesses that are considering relocation to the state or expansion of 

their operations within the state. 
C-14 

A detailed strategic analysis for each participating agency follows. 

King County Transportation — Michael Berman, Supervisor for GIS and Project Management, 

and Tamara Davis, GIS Program Manager 

King County’s Department of Transportation is committed to helping people travel around the region. 

Serving 1.6 million people in an area covering more than 2,000 square miles, it: 

— Provides King County residents with bus service, paratransit, carpool assistance, vanpools, and 

other alternatives to driving alone; 

— Creates programs and facilities for pedestrians, bicyclists, and horseback riders in King County; 

— Works with other King County jurisdictions and organizations to plan transportation 

investments; 

— Designs, builds, operates, and maintains roads and bridges in unincorporated areas of King 

County; and 

— Provides vehicles, equipment, maintenance, and supplies to all departments in King County 

government. 

The department is made up of five divisions and has about 5,000 employees who provide a wide range of 

transportation services to people who live, work, shop, play, or travel in King County. In addition, the 

department works in partnership with 35 cities within King County and also with many subregional, 

regional, and state groups 

Strategic Benefits 

King County is an unusual example for Washington State of a large county with a well-established 

GIS program. King County would not expect significant changes in its own data maintenance 

program as a result of WA-TRANS efforts, but rather would reap benefits from improved capability 

for data sharing with other counties. 

Having data on other counties through CRAB is a benefit for planning. Currently, disparate data is 

not conflated for use in analysis and decision-making processes. 

Transit related projects would benefit from WA-TRANS. Planners currently contact each other 

informally, use disparate map sources, and perform manual review of data. Having a seamless road 

network would result in improved processes through planners knowing where to get data rather than 

searching and other county data being better integrated with King County data. The biggest return is 

knowing where to get desired data rather than having to search data sources and agencies. 

There is a strategic benefit in keeping E911 data up-to-date. WA-TRANS data makes the difference 

between data and no data for E911. The E911 benefit is always for a region rather than any single 
C-15 

county. Currently there are a lot of redundant data collection efforts. Counties may use digital 

orthophotos for most of their data but 911 can’t wait for flights to update data. 

Avoidance of edge matching at counties on a project-by-project basis has been debated as a strategic 

vs. quantifiable benefit and is probably some of each. 

Puget Sound Regional Council — Andy Norton, PSRC

The Puget Sound Regional Council coordinates regional transportation, economic, and growth 

planning for the central Puget Sound region of Washington state. PSRC serves as a forum for cities, 

counties, ports, transit agencies, tribes, and state government to work together on important regional 

issues, and partners with business, civic, environmental organizations, and citizens to identify and 

advocate regional priorities. 

Destination 2030 is the region’s long-range transportation plan, which details the investments needed 

to keep pace with growth, including more roads, more transit service, better traffic management, and 

improved linkages between land use and transportation. PSRC distributes about $160 million in 

Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration funds each year to 

transportation projects that support Destination 2030. 

Strategic Benefits 

PSRC allocates funds for transportation improvement projects, which all must have functional class 

designation. If WA-TRANS sponsors an accurate functional class network and accurate status of 

functional class change process, this would be a significant strategic benefit. Benefits would accrue 

to PSRC constituency organizations that maintain roads without functional class designations. 

Currently, there is no way to track functional class changes, which is a big issue. 

Having a partnership where there is absolute knowledge of functional class designation and status of 

changes would be very helpful. Making the changes is supposed to be a three-month process and 

there is a requirement to know the point where any designation is in this process. Twenty-five or 30 

processes have happened since 2001. PSRC can’t give the jurisdictions Federal money in cases where 

the process has not been completed. Is there a lost opportunity with Federal funding? Pierce County 

was recently disturbed about not being able to apply for Federal funding due to this situation. Both 

Pierce and King County have areas where they disagree with existing classifications. 

There is strategic advantage for PSRC in having the most current functional class and correct 

information for sub-networks. Number of miles reported does affect funding levels. There is different 

money for urban vs. rural functional class designation, yet no one has taken the time to determine 

which local roads are urban vs. rural. 
C-16 

There is a push to formalize corridor analysis. Study areas are not well formalized, yet the actual 

projects are big money. Locations around Lake Taps provide a good example of lost projects. In King 

County the area around Muckleshoot Amphitheatre is an example of lost opportunity. 

There are strategic benefits for homeland security and disaster recovery. Valuation of transportation 

features done through a framework will yield faster and better disaster recovery efforts than if there 

is no framework. If a T1 or T2 route goes down, government officials will go nuts because the result 

is that the economy stops. 

There would be strategic benefits for FAST Corridor and international freight development. WATRANS as an integrated system allows decision-makers to determine the efficacy of huge freight 

projects—$1 million per grade separation projects, in a regional context. The freight roundtable is 

statewide. Decision-makers spend a lot of money on freight access (getting stuff from/to port). 

Decision-makers are in the driver’s seat regarding access problems, so they need consolidated 

intermodal data access. Large port development money is not being spent for Washington. Los 

Angeles recently spent $10 Billion on port access. PSRC currently is the only organization 

addressing these port issues as it has the four-county transportation network stitched together. 

Regional planners are not currently doing a good job on national rail or truck characteristics. WATRANS is the logical home for multi-jurisdictional networks. 

A final strategic benefit— PSRC has all these projects and does not really know when they are 

complete. Using WA-TRANS for tracking and communicating the progress of the projects would be 

very helpful. 

Sound Transit — Kristina Evanoff, Project Development Coordinator

In November 1996, voters in the urban areas of King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties approved the local 

taxes to create Sound Transit. The agency's mission is to plan, build, and operate regional transit systems 

and services to improve mobility for Central Puget Sound. The system includes: high-occupancy vehicle 

(HOV) lane access improvements; ST Express bus routes; Sounder commuter rail; Link light rail and new 

park-and-ride lots and transit centers. Sound Transit carries about 11 million people a year in buses 

and commuter and light rail trains, improving mobility and providing alternatives to sitting in traffic. 

Strategic Benefits 

WA-TRANS will address issues with attribute and geocoding consistency. Currently, there is redundancy 

in street attributes. Having one master street dataset will be more efficient.
C-17 

Spokane County GIS — Ian VonEssen

Tax dollars go out according to maintained miles. Thus, counties would like to learn of segments that 

are undercounted. That’s where the big cost and strategic benefit are in determining errors regarding 

mileage. Each year, a set amount of gas tax revenue goes out to the counties. Having WA-TRANS in 

place would provide more accurate accounting and provide accountability for CRAB. 

There are FEMA Region 9 issues regarding data for rural counties. No address range information is 

being maintained. Route milepost information is a big deal for counties and DOT. It would be very 

positive to have that information but building it is another thing. 

There are large Homeland Security implications to having a seamless road network for the state. 

US Bureau of Census — Wendy Hawley and Michaellyn Garcia

The Census Bureau utilizes staff in 12 regional offices and a National Processing Center to manage 

operations related to the preparation of the decennial census as well as ongoing demographic and 

economic surveys. The United States Congress, Bureau of Labor Statistics, the National Center for 

Health Statistics, Department of Housing and Urban Development and the American public are just a 

few of the Census Bureau’s customers. 

Each Census Bureau regional office is responsible for collecting road network data from state, county 

and local government partners throughout the decade. This data is used primarily for manual address 

geocoding and digitizing file maintenance. During the current decade, Regional Offices have also 

been researching and collecting road network data for the MAF/TIGER Accuracy Improvement 

Project (MTAIP) which will achieve a minimum of 7.6m accuracy for the street centerlines in the 

Census Bureau Topographically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) database. 

Strategic Benefits: 

It is difficult to project the future costs of maintenance to the TIGERdatabase because the Census 

Bureau conducts maintenance planning on a 12-year cycle and it is difficult to anticipate the 

direction in which changes in technology may drive the program in the next decade. The Seattle 

Regional Office estimates that considerable cost and time would have been saved had a 

comprehensive database existed at the state level at the forefront of the MTAIP program. The 

Regional Office procedure for the MTAIP program was to start with state and tribal sources, then 

county, then city. A state level database would have either provided one-stop-shop access to 

county/city level data or at least identified key contacts to reach at the county level, thus reducing 

research time. 

Although most of the work for MTAIP file acquisition is completed, WA-TRANS will provide future 

benefits for both address geocoding and digitizing work, as the Census Bureau anticipates continuing 

to work with local files for TIGERfile maintenance. The benefits will be time saved researching 

key contacts and available files as well as providing easy access to current data and reduce time that 
C-18 

local governments spend responding to Census Bureau data requests. These benefits will enable the 

Census Bureau to improve TIGERdata in a more timely and efficient manner, essentially 

contributing to the improvement of census data, congressional representation, and the distribution of 

federal funds. A secondary benefit is the potential for WA-TRANS to provide a platform for 

encouraging data maintenance by counties where GIS data is currently not maintained. Local 

maintenance of data will reduce Census Bureau cost in creating and maintaining the data in TIGER. 

Washington Department of Natural Resources — Deborah Naslund, IT/GIS Business Analyst; 

Mac McKay, Hydrography and Transportation Data Steward; Ralph Silva-Perry, Cartography 

Supervisor 

DNR has a role to protect and manage many valuable state assets. The people of Washington own 

more than 5 million acres of land—forests, farms, commercial properties and underwater lands—all 

of which are managed to provide benefits to citizens. 

Much of this land is dedicated to supporting public institutions ,like schools and universities DNR 

manages it, selling products like timber and wheat. DNR manages underwater lands to provide access 

to the waters of the state—rivers, lakes, streams and Puget Sound. DNR also works to serve the 

continuation of navigation and commerce. In 2005, product sales and leases from managed lands 

brought in about $271 million. 

DNR also protects other public resources—fish, wildlife, water, etc. Two of the largest and most 

important responsibilities in resource protection are fire prevention and suppression and regulating 

forest practices (or timber harvest). 

Strategic Benefits 

There will be benefits to the public, which wants access to DNR land. There will be reduction of 

liability due to improved accuracy (for example, notation to not take the family car on a forest fourwheel-drive road). DNR gets sued when people have problems with roads. Consistency across 

regulatory agencies would also provide strategic benefits; for example, in the area of public 

submissions of application to harvest timber. 

Having a seamless dataset provides benefit to everyone. Getting out of the business of maintaining 

data on roads that are not DNR roads is beneficial to the agency. For example, WA-TRANS would 

provide data on public use/public access from county roads to DNR land. This analysis is not done 

currently due to lack of resources. Every couple of years DNR gets wild analysis requests from 

legislature and this is an example. 

DNR provides a product that is a statewide coverage of public lands quadrangles. It would be a 

strategic advantage to users to have from WA-TRANS a consistent, current data set based on a 

regular update cycle. 
C-19 

Management of public land is a big deal in Washington, as possibly one-third of the total land in 

eastern Washington and one-half in western Washington is public. It will be strategically beneficial 

to have better seamless data sets for use in this management. 

Scale-selectable detail is absolutely essential for some applications, but staff currently must do this 

with custom data sets. Road ownership information is needed. Easements (for example, from the 

Forest Service) are not available regarding forest practices and maintenance responsibilities. Any 

extent to which WA-TRANS can manage this data will be of strategic benefit to DNR. 

County Road Administration Board (CRAB) — Steve Hillesland, Assistant Director; Kathy 

O’Shea, Database Development Specialist 

The County Road Administration Board (CRAB) was created by the Legislature in 1965 to provide 

statutory oversight of Washington's thirty-nine county road departments. The agency is funded from 

the portion of the counties' fuel tax that is withheld for state supervision, and from a small portion of 

the two grant programs that it administers. 

The agency is governed by a nine-member board, which meets quarterly and is comprised of six 

county commissioners/council-members and three county engineers. The Board is appointed by the 

Board of Directors of the Washington State Association of Counties. The Board establishes and 

maintains "Standards of Good Practice" to guide and ensure consistency and professional 

management of county road departments in the state of Washington. 

The agency is a major resource for the Washington Association of County Engineers and the 

Washington State Association of Counties for transportation related issues. CRAB does research, 

provides reports, and presents testimony when appropriate. The responsibility to distribute the 

counties' portion of the Motor Vehicle Fuel Tax (MVFT) was given to CRAB in 1985. At that time 

the agency also became the custodian of the county road log, a database of over 40,000 miles of 

roads. The formula for the distribution of fuel tax revenues is updated biennially to reflect statewide 

changes in population, costs, and mileage. 

Strategic Benefits 

CRAB administers two grant programs: rural arterials and preservation of arterial system. Its culture 

is to help counties become more effective, rather than to manage by controlling purse strings. There 

is a staff of 15, made up of engineers and IT staff. Its board is made up of county commissioners and 

engineers. 

Counties must keep a road log to provide fair distribution of gas tax. CRAB did early IT 

developments to enable this record keeping. The Mobility program is the latest incarnation but it 

does not have a GIS component. Less than half of the counties currently have a viable GIS, yet they 

need GIS data to synchronize with Mobility. The legislature wants statewide Mobility data for any 

number of reasons. 
C-20 

WA-TRANS will provide data that doesn’t currently exist to counties that can’t afford GIS. CRAB 

would have to hire this work done if there was no WA-TRANS project. Going to DNR would be 

possible but less attractive relative to road accuracy. Nineteen to 20 counties do not have GIS data at 

this point. Only five large counties have GIS and a Mobility layer. There are also counties with GIS 

but without a Mobility layer. 

Collision data is important and complex, storing 140 fields. CRAB wants to capture WA-TRANS 

shape files to display this type of data in Mobility, using a linear referencing system to show more 

data. Other opportunities are use of a pavement management tool or an application to display the 

condition of roads for prioritization. 

Pavement management is a very effective tool to predict when a road is going to fail. The ideal time 

to rehabilitate this road is between “should” and “must” conditions. Currently CRAB performs this 

analysis with tabular reports. Showing the analysis visually reveals things that don’t show in tabular 

reports. It is possible to see missing links. With visual analysis, planners begin to be able to combine 

multiple projects into one project, by getting a better look at system-wide analyses. All interchanges 

have county elements. Better tools encourage cooperation on funding as well as project management 

and construction. The result is that better projects bubble to the surface, are completed, and save the 

public money. CRAB wants the best rural projects to compete. How can you get a clear picture of 

needs without GIS capability? Needs assessment could have a GIS element as well. 

Better data will result in making better decisions on grant projects. Avoiding wasting money is 

difficult to quantify. Better project management for CRAB is a huge strategic benefit. Would having 

better metrics help Washington as a state get more transportation funding from the legislature? How 

much more effective are traffic engineers in prioritizing safety programs and competing for funding 

with a spatial model available? There are anecdotal experiences regarding opportunity costs of 

unfunded projects. 

Citizens in counties come to public works all the time with interests in safety, comfort, and many 

other topics. If they could see Mobility at the counter with a map, it would make the work of the staff 

so much easier. 

Mason County Public Works — Lurleen Smith, GIS Manager

Mason County Public Works has the responsibility of engineering, construction, maintenance, and 

administration of the Mason County Road System. This includes all county roads but none of the 

state routes or the City of Shelton streets. The Public Works Department is one of the county's largest 

departments. The daily tasks are numerous and can vary greatly in nature. The one common point 

associated with all of the Public Works Department activities is the County Road System. 

The Engineering Section is responsible for planning and developing the designs for the new road 

construction. This includes the management and inspection during construction, the related survey 
C-21 

work, and right-of-way acquisition. Additionally, the department has responsibility for bridge 

construction and inspection and the environmental review associated with any of the construction 

projects. 

Strategic Benefits 

Some people would raise issues with county-level not benefiting from statewide data. But as datasets 

are used by state and federal agencies, the data is improved for everyone. Using county control 

points, for example, for DNR flyovers would have resulted in more accurate data sets. Mason 

County’s credibility with the public is affected by the accuracy of the data. 

GIS is very new here, only in place two years. Thus the data sets are very new. As WA-TRANS 

creates data standards, Mason County can implement them, as the county has neither staff time nor 

expertise in-house. Having a geodatabase design provided by WA-TRANS is a huge benefit for 

Mason County. WA-TRANS provides important benefits to small rural counties that just 

implemented e-mail several years ago. These counties must borrow from others in order to 

incorporate enterprise GIS. 

There are strategic benefits in the area of emergency management. Mason County is considered a 

liability due to lack of emergency response capability. Having comprehensive regional data would be 

of benefit for responding to a disaster. There is a need to have emergency responders be able to 

respond across county lines. As another example, fires were bad during the past year. DNR trail data 

in the national forest does not match up with Mason County data at all. Yet firefighters must respond 

in an emergency and Mason County could not find where their fires were. There would be a strategic 

benefit from improved response. 

There is a strategic benefit in the ability to use the WA-TRANS structure to facilitate data sharing 

with utilities. Counties and utilities would need to provide the impetus to get this going. 

Functional classifications will be available in WA-TRANS. Federal transportation funding is 

dependant on classification being up-to-date. There are many strategic benefits to having greater 

accessibility to Federal funding. 

Mason County has tremendous issues with flooding and emergency evacuation routes. There are only 

a couple of ways in and out of the county (State highways 3 and 101). Forest service roads are 

evacuation routes, but are very steep, four-wheel-drive routes. Mason County has not even addressed 

this issue. 

CH2MHill — Jamie Crawford

Linear referencing and routing projects are currently not being done due to lack of data. Having the 

data available to perform these analyses would be an important strategic benefit as it would open 
C-22 

consulting organizations up to doing additional work to support efforts of transportation 

organizations in the state. 

 

CONCLUSION 

The WA-Trans project promises to provide significant benefits to the DOT and even greater benefits 

to state tax payers. 

Furthermore, given the significant strategic benefits of the project and the likelihood that there will 

be a positive financial return, staff recommends that the DOT proceed with a project pilot, which will 

help to clarify the costs and benefits of the full investment.