COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE FOR RESOLUTION NO. 100464

Directing the City Manager to cause the following comments to be submitted to the Mid-America Regional Council (MARC) for the long range transportation plan, known as Transportation Outlook 2040.

WHEREAS, MARC is the metropolitan planning organization for Greater Kansas City and it is required to maintain a long-range transportation plan that guides transportation decision making and funding decisions involving federal dollars over a period of several decades; and

  WHEREAS, MARC is developing a new long-range transportation plan – Transportation Outlook 2040 – that describes how our region can accomplish this transportation vision and ensure our transportation investments contribute toward the broader regional vision. The plan will identify needs and budget federal transportation funds that the metro area expects to receive over the next 30 years; and

  WHEREAS, a major component of the plan is identifying a list of regionally important projects to improve the transportation of people and goods such as highway, transit, roadways and bicycle and pedestrian facilities. This federally required project listing is intended to help the region identify and prioritize future transportation investments based on goals, strategies and estimated financial resources; and

  WHEREAS, the plan will incorporate regionally significant, multi-modal transportation projects that will lead us toward a more sustainable future and improved quality of life for Greater Kansas City’s diverse residents. The plan’s project list will span a breadth of transportation options, including bicycle trails, roadways, sidewalks, ports, public transit and other projects that support major activities centers and livable communities. Nominated projects were within at least one of the following five project categories: Roadway, Transit, Activity Centers/Nodes, Regional Bicycle and Pedestrian Facilities or Management and Operations Programs; and

WHEREAS, Committee Substitute for Resolution Number 090750, adopted on September 3, 2009, directed the City Manager to cause a variety of projects to be submitted to MARC for inclusion in the plan; and

WHEREAS, MARC has spent two years working with area planners, elected officials and citizen input to develop a plan which includes transportation projects and a 30-year growth forecast and describes how the region will manage, operate and invest in its multimodal transportation system over the next three decades, and is now conducting a public comment period through June 1 for the Transportation Outlook 2040 draft plan; NOW, THEREFORE,

BE IT RESOLVED BY THE COUNCIL OF KANSAS CITY:

Section 1. That the following comments, by category, are submitted to MARC for the long range transportation plan known as Transportation Outlook 2040:

ROADWAYS:

(1)   In an effort to measure and include a regional component in the scoring of roadway projects, the Highway Committee scored each of the roadway projects separate from the original MARC Score. The process used included giving each community an opportunity to rate each roadway project with a high, medium, or low rating. The rating was intended to measure the regional component of the project. Each community was left to their own interpretation of what “regional” represents and only a small number of communities participated in the exercise. The Highway Committee Score and the original MARC Score were later combined into what was referred to as the Modified Score. The Modified Score was then used as one of the primary measures to determine which roadway projects were financially constrained (based on projections of the regions available resources) and which were financially unconstrained. In the future we would not recommend using this process unless there is a clear criteria/definition and methodology applied to each project to determine the regional component of the project. This process should also be done in an open forum or group setting that would allow discussion and the opportunity to develop consensus.

(2)   The City of Kansas City, Missouri has several projects that were on the financially unconstrained list. While we recognize and understand the need for the Long Range Transportation Plan to be financially constrained, we have a concern for the process and ability to move a project from the unconstrained list to the constrained list and the impacts to air quality modeling and other constraints. We are recommending that a process be defined and approved to address this issue.

TRANSIT:

(1)   Supporting mobility options—especially transit and connecting pedestrian systems—is critical in bringing sustainable reinvestment and redevelopment to the region’s urban areas as recommended in MARC’s 2040 “Adaptive Land Use Scenario.”

(2)   The transit components promote a strong, bus-based regional service plan and continue investment in the regionally significant transit corridors.

(3)   Collaborative efforts to secure sufficient long term funding for transit is essential if the region is to support, develop, implement, and operate significant transit projects in the region.

ACTIVITY CENTER/NODES:

(1)   The use of activity centers in rating transportation projects requires a clearer understanding and identification process. This will not only insure that activity centers identification is done equitably, but also will build greater confidence in the applications that make use of those activity centers. While the levels of activity centers are based on objective criteria, the determining factors for identifying whether something is an activity center or not, is quite open to interpretation. We suggest that in the future a subcommittee be established with the role of specifying a rating system and objective criteria for identifying activity centers. This would insure that all activity centers are recognized and properly scored. It would also insure that there is a definite and satisfactory conclusion to the process of identifying all activity centers that are relevant to a particular round of forecasts or transportation recommendations.