MY AMPO
Best Practices

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

Example of ADA accessible website. This site is Section 508 compliant and also provides links to Spanish language pages for the local Hispanic population. The activities were undertaken as part of the San Antonio-Bexar County MPO certification review recommendations. http://www.urbanstreet.info/2nd_sym_proceedings/Volume%202/Rivera.pdf

Bike-Ped

  • San Diego Association of Governments’ Pedestrian Design Guidelines. These model guidelines are intended to assist local governments and other interested entities in the creation and redevelopment of pedestrian areas and corridors throughout the San Diego region. These pedestrian places will serve people who travel on foot or in wheelchairs including those that have little transportation choice, and encourage people to walk rather than drive a private vehicle. SANDAG’s Pedestrian Design Guidelines [PDF]
  • Champaign County Regional Planning Commission: Urbana Bicycle Master Plan — The City of Urbana contracted with the RPC to create a master bicycle plan for the city that made bicycling a safe, efficient, and practical travel option for recreational and commuter purposes. The process for creating the bicycle plan involved working with existing land and transportation plans, gathering public input on preferred bike routes, creating a Bicycle Level of Service model, and formulating a realistic implementation plan. One of the key technical tools that helped with the acceptance and implementation of this Plan was the Bicycle Level of Service model. It was used to evaluate existing streets in the city recommended for bicycle use, and provided a level of both technical and qualitative data that helped the elected officials make sound investment decisions. Link to Plan Intro [PDF] Link to Entire Plan
  • Northwest Arkansas RPC Heritage Trail Partnership — In 2006, the MPO formed a partnership with local jurisdictions, and the non-profit group called the Heritage Trail Partners in order to create a signage program for the entire Heritage Trail. This sign initiative brought a large amount of public awareness to the Trail and has resulted in positive public support, even when difficult funding issues arise. In addition to this signage effort, the on-the-ground infrastructure of the actual bicycle and pedestrian system is continuing to make steady progress.
  • Flagstaff Metropolitan Planning Organization 2030 Regional Transportation Plan — This 2009 award-winning long-term plan called for compact development, punctuated by activity centers and the emphasis on walking and bicycling modes. In order to turn these plans into actuality, the MPO played a central role in a tax campaign that yielded dedicated taxes of more that $800,000 annually for pedestrian and bicycle safety and capacity projects. With this money, they were able to increase their bike lane miles from 59 to 117. Flagstaff 2030 RTP

Border

  • Whatcom Council of Governments’ International Mobility and Trade Corridor Project. The Project is a coalition of over 60 public and private organizations that plans improvements to the four border crossings between Whatcom County and British Columbia. http://www.wcog.org/imtc/

Collaboration

  • Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro MPO and Capital Area MPO 2035 LRTP– The Research Triangle region in North Carolina covers seven counties and is home to about 1.6 million people. Although this area functions as a single regional economic market, there are 2 MPOs responsible for the long range transportation planning. Starting in 2007, the 2 MPOs departed from their past practice of creating two separate planning documents for the one region. Instead they came together to produce a joint 2035 Long Range Transportation Plan that was adopted in June 2009. http://www.campo-nc.us/LRTP/2035/2035JointLRTP_3-24-09_publicreviewdraft_LT.pdf [PDF]
  • Utah MPOs and Utah State DOT — The Wasatch Front Regional Council, Mountainland Association of Governments, Cache MPO and Dixie MPO worked with the Utah DOT (UDOT) to adobt Utah’s Unified Transportation Plan. This plan is a compilation of the four MPOs regional transportation plans and Utah DOT’s (UDOT) Long Range Transportation Plan. UDOT played a key role in coordinating the statewide transportation plan with the MPO regional plans. These individual plans all utilized common timing, phasing of projects, identical financial assumptions, the same travel demand model, common project cost estimation, and a similar public involvement process. Link to Overview of Wasach Plan [PDF] Link to Entire Plan
  • Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission and PDOT and NJDOT — The New Jersey Department of Transportation and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation commissioned DVRPC to prepare the Smart Transportation Guidebook, thus joining two DOT’s and a bi-state MPO to prepare common planning tools and design guidelines that could be used in both states. The Guidebook was developed to help agencies, local governments, developers and others plan and design roadways that fit within the existing and planned context of the community through which they pass. The end goal was to incorporate transportation solutions into the community that were context-sensitive, affordable, supported by the public, and linked land use with transportation. Link to Plan [PDF]

Concurrency

The Center for Urban Tranportation Research (CUTR) at the University of South Florida put together a best practices guide in 2007 for Transportation Concurrency,  Although tailored to Florida, many of the conclusions could be applied elsewhere. Link to study

Financial Forecasting

PowerPoint presentation of noteworthy MPO practice in cooperative revenue forecasting and annual listing of obligated projects. Financial Forecasting PowerPoint Presentation [PPT]

Freight/Railroad

  • Atlanta Regional Commission Freight Mobility Plan — The development of this data-driven, policy-based Regional Plan was essential to the identification and prioritization of improvements that accommodate mobility of both people and goods while mitigating the negative impacts of freight movement on congestion, safety, and communities. A lot of the success of this plan relied on the dialogue between public decision makers and private sector freight stakeholders. For part of the study, Class 1 Railroads, local distributors, retail representatives, and developers worked with county and city planners on understanding the implication of local regulations, ordinances and permitting processes for freight mobility and freight transportation facilities. Link to Plan [PDF]
  • Wichita Area MPO’s Railroad Crossing Plan — Examines safety and congestion issues at almost 300 railroad crossings in the region. Located near the geographic center of the United States, WAMPO’s planning area sees a vast amount of rail freight pass through the region. As rail freight and population both increase, there has been a rise in concern over safety and congestion at rail crossings. Link to Plan [PDF]

ITS/Operations

Job Access

Land Use-Transportation Planning

  • AMPO report profiling several noteworthy practices in integrating land use and transportation planning. [PDF]
  • Transportation Economic Land Use System (TELUS) is a free software tool designed for MPOs and state DOTs to help meet SAFETEA-LU planning requirements. The TELUS program supports two applications: TELUS – an information management and decision support program for transportation planning, and TELUM – an integrated interactive software package for evaluating the land use impacts of regional transportation projects. See the TELUS home page at www.telus-national.org.
  • The Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR) at the University of South Florida conducted a case study in 2003 concerning the planned corridor improvements in Hillsborough County, Florida.  This best practices guide is intended to allow the county to implement future transportation improvements and proper land-use choices.  Link to case study

Long Range Planning

  • Charlottesville-Albemarle MPO’s United Jefferson Area Mobility Plan, or UnJam 2025. Initiated in 2002, this regional long-range transportation plan links transportation, land use, economy, and environment. The plan also addresses new methods of financing including the exploration of public/private partnerships. http://www.tjpdc.org/transportation/unjam.asp
  • Puget Sound Regional Council 2040 Long Range Plan — This past year, the regions Plan, called VISION 2040 was adopted. It serves as a model for other MPOs looking to integrate transportation, environment, land use, and the economy into one Plan. It also includes actions to achieve the region’s planning goals to sustain the region’s overall quality of life as 1.4 million more people live in the region by 2040. Link to Plan [PDF]
  • Missoula Office of Planning and Grants 2008 Long Range Plan — Through visioning workshops using creative map techniques, electronic polling, and a telephone survey, this process enabled citizens with varying mobility preferences to reach consensus. The result was a scenario that graphically reflected the public’s views of how Missoula should grow and how it’s citizens might best move around, both safely and efficiently. The reason that this was so successful was because it marked a departure from the former practice of planning transportation investments in reaction to perceived growth patterns. Instead, Envision Missoula guided the decision-making process for making sound transportation investments in the region. Link to Missoula 2008 LRP [PDF]
  • Sacramento Area Council of Governments’ (SACOG) Metropolitan Transportation Plan for 2035. The MTP, almost three years in the making, is a fully integrated, multimodal plan that will ultimately help protect the quality of life for the Sacramento region. It is the genesis for SACOG’s Blueprint land use study, which examines the relationships between transportation, air quality, and land use patterns. http://www.sacog.org/mtp/2035
  • Transportation 2040, the Long Range Plan of the Puget Sound Regional Council, the Seattle, WA MPO. It is a coordinated strategy for the region’s transit, freight, ferry, roadway, rail, aviation, bicycle, and pedestrian systems for the next 30 years. It is customized to fit the region’s geography – integrating land use and transportation planning in ways that embrace the policy goals of SAFETEA-LU and meet the needs of the region’s growing population. http://www.psrc.org/transportation/t2040

NCHRP 8-36 Reports

NCHRP project 8-36, Research for the AASHTO Standing Committee on Planning, was established to provide a flexible, ongoing program of quick-response research to develop improvements to the analytical methods, decision-support tools, procedures, and techniques employed by practitioners to support statewide and metropolitan transportation planning, programming, and development

NCHRP 8-36 reports are available at AASHTO’s website. Several reports of interest to MPOs are listed below. To access these and other NCHRP 8-36 reports, visit http://144.171.11.40/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=909

  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 2 —Final Report
    Mainstreaming Management and Operations into Transportation Programs Development: Guidance for Institutional Change
    April 2003
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 4 —Final Report
    The Use of Expert Panels in Analyzing Transportation and Land Use Alternatives
    April 2002
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 5 —Final Report
    Transportation Planning Market Research Notebook
    March 2003
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 6 —Draft Final Report
    Product Delivery of New and Improved Travel Forecasting Procedures
    July 2003
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 7—-Final Report
    Development of a Multimodal Tradeoffs Methodology for Use in Statewide Transportation Planning
    October 2004
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 9—-Final Report
    Particular Matter and Ozone Attainment Status of Metropolitan Area of the United States
    September 2002
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 11—-Final Report
    Technical Methods to Support Analysis of Environmental Justice Issues
    April 2002
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 14 —Final Report
    Consultation Between State Departments of Transportation and Local Elected Officials In Non-Metropolitan Areas
    June 2002
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 21 —Final Report
    Expediting the Transportation Planning and Project Development Process to Meet Fast Paced Customer Requirements
    August 2003
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 23—Final Report
    Review of the Potential Feasibility of Using Alternative Revenue Sources to Fund Future State Transportation Needs
    July 2002
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 26—Final Report
    Surface Transportation Safety and Investment
    July 2002
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 28—Final Report
    Rural Conformity: A Survey of Practice
    October 31, 2003
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 30 —Final Report
    Intermodal Freight Connectors: Strategies for Improvement
    August 2003
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 31—Final Report
    Elderly Issues in Transportation
    October 2003
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 32—Final Report
    Tools, Techniques, and Methods for Rural Transportation Planning
    January 2004
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 33—Final Report
    Best Practices in Statewide Freight Planning
    October 2003
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 43—Final Report
    Return on Investment to Freight Rail Capacity Improvement
    April 2005
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 53—Final Report
    Changes in Travel Behavior/Demand Due to Managed Lanes (HOV, HOT) Facility System Expansion
    October 2006
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 58—Final Report
    Best Practices for State and MPO NHS and STP Programming  
    February 2007
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 63—Final Report
    Best Practice Methodology for Calculating Return on Investment (ROI) for Transportation Programs and Projects
    June 2007
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 76—Final Report
    Conference on Best Practices in Meeting SAFETEA-LU Requirements in the Statewide Transportation Planning Process
    June 2007
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 78—Final Report
    Small Community Research and Peer Exchange
    March 2009
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 85—Final Report
    Congestion Pricing and Investment Requirements
    June 2009
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 90—Final Report
    Best Practices in the Use of Microsimulation Models
    April 2010
  • NCHRP 8-36 Task 94—Final Report
    Integrated State and Local Government Policy Approaches to Transportation and Climate Change
    July 2009

New MPOs

Case studies of the formation of MPOs designated subsequent to the 1990 Census.

Performance Measurements

  • A comprehensive sysnthesis of state DOT performance measurement plans and reports, including links to websites and documents. Link (pdf)
  • AASHTO Standing Committee on Performance Measurement offers these recommended safety performance measures in its May 2009 report. Link (pdf)
  • National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Project 20-68A on best practices in project delivery management.  Includes an overview and analysis of performance management systems in Virginia, Missouri, Utah, Arizona, and Washington. Link (pdf)
  • A somewhat older, but still useful, 2004 review of performance measurement best practices prepared for the Tennessee DOT. Link (pdf)
  • A literature review of context specific solutions (CSS) performance measures.  Examines 14 state programs in 2006. Link (pdf)
  • Report that summarizes the findings of an August, 2009 peer exchange in Washington, DC, sponsered by FHWA and AASHTO.  Covers establishing performance measures and setting targets for pavement and bridge preservation. Link (pdf)
  • A 2004 FHWA report on the advancement of performance metrics internationally, specifically looking at Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Japan. Link (pdf)
  • From AASHTO, a primer on highway-based performance management, using examples from several states, including California, New York, Maryland, Florida, and Montana. Link (pdf)
  • FHWA primer on safety performance measures to be utilized during the transportation planning process. Link (pdf)
  • A 2007 AASHTO report detailing SDOT projects from nine states in terms of cost and schedule performance. Link (pdf)
  • TRB Performance Measurement Committee triennial report. Link (pdf)
  • Washington state DOT report on GPS-based freight performance in urbanized areas. Link (pdf)
  • White paper on performance-based management from 2009 AASHTO CEO Leadership Forum in Minneapolis, MN. Link (pdf)

Public Involvement

The AMPO Public Involvement Working Group supports public involvement in metropolitan transportation planning that meets federal requirements and strengthens the delivery and stewardship of programs, projects, and the transportation system. Learn more

Security and Safety

  • Paper by Michael Meyer of the Georgia Institute of Technology on the role of the MPO in preparing for security incidents.http://www.planning.dot.gov/Documents/Securitypaper.htm
  • Cheyenne MPO’s Transportation Safety Management Plan — The MPO has taken a leadership role as one of the first MPOs in the country to develop a regional transportation safety plan. The mission of this Plan is to eliminate preventable traffic-related deaths and injuries and the goal is to reduce fatal and injury crashes by 10 percent by 2020. To achieve this, the Cheyenne region needs to eliminate an average of 3.5 fatal and injury crashes every year for the next 13 years. Link to Plan [PDF]
  • North Florida TPO Traffic Incident Management Handbook and Safety Video Series — These focused on incident management training for responders. In 2003, the North Florida TPO was instrumental in the launch of the North Florida ITS Coalition, which has more than 60 members. Members include counties, municipalities, highway patrol, local police departments, fire and rescue personnel, and more. The key training points are based on national traffic incident management standards, so these products are useful to other MPOs and other responder agencies across the United States. Handbook [PDF]  http://www.northfloridatpo.com/index.php?id=25 [Videos]
  • Houston-Galveston Area Council Transportation Safety Planning Program — Houston-Galveston developed a program that was one of the first implemented by an MPO and began as a GIS exercise to geocode crash data. Since then, it has evolved into a comprehensive effort that includes the formation of a Regional Safety Council. The MPO brought together safety planners, engineers, law enforcement, the medical community, freight transportation, and the legal profession in order to combine knowledge and resources that would help reduce the number of crashes in the region. http://www.h-gac.com/taq/planning/default.aspx
    • Furthermore, in 2009, they issued a State of Safety in the Region that offers a program review, legislative update, and crash analysis for the Houston-Galveston region. State of Safety [PDF]

Smart Growth

  • Mainstreaming Transit-Oriented Development in the Metropolitan Transportation Planning Process — Peer Exchange Report from a Transportation Planning Capacity Building Program meeting in Albuquerque, NM in June 2009.
  • Sacramento Area Council of Governments 2035 Plan — SACOG is an association of local governments in the six-county Sacramento Region. The Plan, also known as MTP2035 is the first transportation plan for the Sacramento region that purposely links transportation to a smart growth land use pattern. SACOG used state of the art modeling technology and robust public outreach to develop a plan to invest $42 billion into travel options for the region. In conjunction with hosting 17 regional workshops to work with the community on important transportation issues. http://www.sacog.org/mtp/2035/final-mtp/
  • The Charlottesville-Albemarle MPO / Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission Jefferson Area Eastern Planning Initiative. The initiative is a TCSP project and will culminate in a modeling tool called CorPlan that is capable of evaluating transportation and land use options. http://www.tjpdc.org/community/epi.asp
  • The Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s Transportation for Livable Communities (TLC) program. Launched in 1998, the TLC’s goal is nurturing innovative strategies to support livable communities throughout the Bay Area. TLC supports plans and projects that strengthen the link between transportation, community goals, and land use by providing funding and incentives for programs that encourage pedestrian, transit or bicycle trips, and promote the compact development of housing in downtowns and regional activity centers. http://www.mtc.ca.gov/planning/smart_growth/#tlc
  • Furthermore, the MTC conducted a 10 year evaluation of the TLC program: MTC 10 Year Evaluation
  • Understanding and Applying the Concept of Sustainable Development to Transportation Planning and Decision-Making in the U.S. [PDF]
    Please Note: This is a Dissertation Written by Mr. Ralph Hall of MIT. AMPO did not participate in the generation of the questions or in the solicitation of responses that resulted in the development of this work.

Transit

  • Greensboro Urban MPO’s Higher Education Area Transit (HEAT) Project — The MPO teamed up with the Greensboro Transit Authority, and other stakeholders to create a new bus service, connecting 8 college and university campuses. The HEAT project was funded mainly by grant money from the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) program and by the colleges and universities, who committed financial resources to ensure that students rode for free. In the first academic year, the six HEAT bus routes carried over 130,000 passengers. This project demonstrates that through a strategic application of resources and by leveraging community support, a project can create long lasting benefits for the community. Link to Project
  • The Texas Transportation Institute conducted a study in 2008 that provides nationwide examples of funding mechanisms for mass transit projects. Link to Study
  • A Study on the social and economic outcomes of light and commuter rail projects by the Texas Transportation Institute reports their impact on metropolitan regions nationwide. Link to Study
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