transportation- related land use projects will enable cities and developers to expand options available in the market. It will promote well designed urban development areas using “complete streets” with interconnected local street networks. The program will fund capital and planning projects. Establishing a funding mechanism such as the CLC program will help implementing variety of transportation-related land use projects. Once the program is in place, federal formula funding, with the corresponding local share could be used for planning and capital projects such as streetscape improvements, transit center links, pedestrian linkages, station area plans including high speed station area, access management, a model TOD ordinance, redevelopment of urban centers to support transit facilities, and transit corridor plans. Work Elements and Products: NIRPC will establish, research, and develop the program guidelines, criteria, projects eligibility, evaluation procedures, and funding mechanism that will support the following category: Planning (Pre-Development Plan) category will assist cities with activities such as urban design, detailed redevelopment designs and economic feasibility analysis to prepare projects to compete for grants in the Capital project category. End Products: A new funding program linking transportation investments with land use decisions called CLC will be established and managed by NIRPC.
CONCLUSIONS OF THE FHWA AND FTA 2009 CERTIFICATION REVIEW TEAM Subject to the completion of the corrective actions identified in this report, FHWA and FTA conditionally approved the NIRPC's transportation planning process in Northwestern Indiana until November I, 2010. We offer the following summary of corrective actions, recommendations, and noteworthy practice to enhance the transportation planning process in this region: Corrective Action: In order to meet the minimum requirements of23 CFR 450.320, the region must establish a congestion management process that contains the elements defined in the requirements portion of this section. Specifically, USDOT advises that the following steps be taken to meet these requirements: Establish a congestion management subcommittee, consisting of representatives from at least the following entities: State DOT (INDOT LaPorte District and Headquarters) MPO (NIRPC) County highway departments or equivalent agency (Lake, Porter, LaPorte) City highway departments or equivalent agency (Gary, Hammond, others) Transit operator (NICTD, Regional Bus Authority, others) Private bus operators (Greyhound, etc.) Regional freight operators, if available (truck and rail) Emergency responders, if available (police, fire, ambulance) Determine performance measures2 Highway performance measures (VIC, travel times, travel speeds, Level of Service, etc.) Transit performance measures (on-time %, passenger boarding counts, etc.) Mode-neutral performance measures (benefit/cost, person throughput, hours of delay, customer satisfaction) Non-recurring performance measures (crash statistics, incident response time, etc.) Other regionally-specific performance measures - to be determined from available data Identify data sources Intelligent Transportation Systems (CCTV cameras, traffic loops, enhanced traffic signals) Corrective Action: The FHWAIFTA federal review team finds the MPO's compliance with the EJ Executive Order to be a corrective action. This decision is warranted due to the need for additional EJ analysis to be conducted during the current 2040 Plan update cycle and based on verbal and written comments received at our meeting with the public. Several serious concerns with the metropolitan planning process were identified by stakeholders. Two workshops on EJ and Transportation Planning should be scheduled; one with affected stakeholders and one with NIRPC staff and planning partners. FHW A and FTA can be instrumental in working with NIRPC to plan these opportunities for training and dialogue. Also, work activities underway to update the Long Range Transportation Plan should be amended to add several
Planning Agreements PLANNING ACTIVITIES AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CHICAGO AREA TRANSPORTATION STUDY AND THE NORTHWESTERN INDIANA REGIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION The Northeastern Illinois-Northwestern Indiana area is designated by the federal government as a non-attainment area for ozone. The area contains two metropolitan planning areas, one for which the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission is the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) and one for which the Chicago Area Transportation Study is the MPO. As more than one MPO has authority within a non-attainment area, an agreement is called for by the federal Metropolitan Planning Rules, specifically 23 CFR §450.310(g). Such an agreement was entered into in June, 1997 among the two MPOs and the transportation and the environmental agencies in the two states. In accordance with the June, 1997 Agreement and in order to ensure cooperation among the MPOs, the Chicago Area Transportation Study and the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission have agreed to the planning activities to be coordinated and carried out cooperatively so that principal metropolitan area planning products reflect consistency with best practices and with broader bi-state goals. Areas of coordination, cooperation and consultation between the Chicago Area Transportation Study and the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission: General Cooperate in efforts toward achieving general consistency of plans as they relate to projects that have bi-state impacts. Cooperate in public participation efforts on plans and on projects of bi-state significance. Each MPO will participate in the transportation planning process of the other through technical committee memberships, and involvement in regional corridor, sub-area, major investment studies, management system development and other studies and plans of bi-state significance. Unified Planning Work Program Consult in the development of Unified Planning Work Programs (UPWP). Share UPWP products. Modeling Exchange modeling information at appropriate levels of geography, attempting where possible to relate the data to the MPO’s existing, respective Traffic Analysis Zone systems. Share socio-economic, Census, forecast and survey data and results.