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Case Study in Integrating Land Use and Transportation Decisions - The Capital District of New York
Click HERE for graphic. CONTEXT Development Patterns The metropolitan area surrounding Albany, NY is a multi-centered region with low and moderate density development. The metropolitan statistical area includes six counties and has a population of approximately 900,000. Four counties (Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga and Schenectady) contain nearly 90% of that population and provide a traditional metropolitan service boundary for the regional transit operator (Capital District Transportation Authority), regional planning, board (Capital District Regional Planning Commission) and regional transportation planning agency (Capital District Transportation Committee). The Capital District Transportation Committee (CDTC) is the designated "Metropolitan Planning, Organization" (MPO) for purposes of fulfilling federal transportation law. Urban development in the Capital District has its origins in the largely independent development of its four central cities -- Albany, Troy, Schenectady and Saratoga Springs. The triangle formed by Albany, Troy and Schenectady provided ample room between cities for suburban development through the 1960's and 1970's. Radial suburban development has been modest in all directions except to the north, alone, I-87 (the Adirondack Northway) into Saratoga County. Saratoga County has had among the most rapid growth rates in New York over the past two decades. The resulting urban development is scattered. Albany, as the largest municipality, houses barely 100,000 residents. Ten other cities or towns have at least 20,000 residents. There are several city and suburban employment centers with employment of 3,000 to 15,000 each. Only the Albany central business district, with approximately 40,000 employees, is a major downtown trip destination. Governance New York is a strong home rule state with regard to land use decisions. There is no formal state planning, agency or formal set of state land use goals. State statutes governing the local land use regulatory process are arcane and inconsistent. As a result, standards for what constitutes legally defensible local land use regulation are derived more from case law than from statute. Case law has supported communities in the use of zoning, subdivision and other land use regulations even when not founded on an adopted comprehensive plan. On the other hand, the State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) statutes are strong. When combined with limited use of comprehensive planning, the strong environmental rules leads to a highly reactive decision making process. Development projects and the SEQR impact i assessment process often provide the occasion for discussion of community issues that have not been previously addressed. Often the most visible impacts of development projects are impacts on traffic. In terms of Governance, New York provides three opportunities for interface between the transportation community and the development community. First is the highway permitting process. Depending upon whose highway is involved, either the county or the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) must approve work (curb cuts, signal installation, etc.) on its highways. NYSDOT insists upon adequate site impact evaluation and mitigation of any degradation in level-of-service as part of its permit approval process. Counties vary in the sophistication of their review of permit requests. The second opportunity for interface is through the Section 239 process in state law, which mandates referral to the county planning agency of all local actions near county or state highways. Counties vary in the amount of attention spent on 239 reviews, but in general the 239 process is not the primary mechanism for resolving conflicts over land use actions. A negative county action on a project reviewed can be over-ridden by the local agency. The third interface is the SEQR process. While the community maintains "lead agency" status for SEQR for most development projects, NYSDOT and other transportation agencies are often identified as "affected" or "interested" parties and join in the review. The SEQR process is more likely than the permit review process to address longer range transportation issues involving the cumulative impacts of development. Use of formal "transportation development districts" is rare in New York; there is no broad state enabling,, legislation for communities to enact districts. Town-wide impact fees imposed in the town of Guilderland (in the Capital District) were struck down by the courts in the late 1980's. However, the town of Colonie (also in the Capital District) has implemented mitigation fees that are directly tied to SEQR impact statements without legal challenges. Involvement of Metropolitan Planning Organizations such as the Capital District Transportation Committee in the SEQR process varies across the state. Because an MPO does not have a vested interest (it does not own any highways or operate any transit services), special circumstances generally need to be present for the SEQR lead agency to involve the MPO in the review. State law affords no special status to the MPO in the SEQR process. (MPOs "hosted" by county planning agencies or by regional NYSDOT offices are more likely to be involved in SEQR review than other MPOs in New York.) Consideration of transit concerns in subdivision and site design review varies from community to community but has had generally limited success. 2 MPO Structure CDTC and its sister agencies across the state are creatures of federal law. They exist to satisfy the federal requirements for cooperative decision making regarding metropolitan transportation plans and programs and their influence is rooted in control of federal transportation funds. CDTC's five year "transportation improvement program" includes over $500,000,000 in federal highway and transit projects. MPOs in New York operate on the unique principle of action by consensus - with consensus generally defined as "unanimity of all affected parties". Most of these Waste, like CDTC, have their origins in the mid-1960's and have historically included the state, counties, cities, regional planning boards and principal transit operators as voting members. INITIATIVES TOWARD INTEGRATION Overview The home rule nature of land use decision-making in New York, the separation of regional transportation planning and regional land use planning into two agencies, and the requirement of consensus before WEST action, presents a challenge to those seeking to integrate land use and transportation planning, in New York. The size of the federal transportation program, and the collective responsibility of the MPO members in directing. these funds represents a significant opportunity to foster Intention of land use and transportation planning but the MPO must be engaged in these issues and members must be prepared to use MPO clout in encouraging linkages. A series of initiatives by CDTC has been relatively successful in meeting this challenge. While this effort must be considered a "work in progress", the initiatives have had the cumulative effect of putting the land use transportation relationship on the table for discussion more often in the Capital District than in some other urban areas. These initiatives have included ten sequential steps: 1. Adding suburban towns (on a rotating basis) to the MPO policy structure. 2. Shifting the focus of the long range regional plan from new highways to localized solutions to critical problems. 3. Assuming the lead role in traffic modeling. 3 4. Offering communities a lead role in addressing existing traffic problems and the traffic impacts of cumulative development through a shared-cost "Cooperative Transportation Plan" concept. 5. Developing, a regional policy on public-private highway financing 6. Offering communities technical assistance in reviewing routine site impact studies and assessing traffic mitigation fees. 7. Establishing, Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) screening criteria which require land use management as a prerequisite to highway widening. 8. Assigning priority use of federal funds to implementing the projects and programs identified in the cooperative transportation plans. 9. Setting aside $500,000 for a "Corridor Management Initiative" to provide for land use planning, along, critical corridors to complement the cooperative transportation planning work. 10. Engaging town, county and city officials along with business leaders, freight providers, environmental advocates and the general public in a "New Visions" initiative focussed on the next Generation of policy issues (those beyond 2000, using, a year 2015 horizon). The following provides further details of these initiatives. Step 1. Expanded Policy Structure CDTC was created in 1964 in the mode of other upstate New York transportation planning, groups with local government representation limited to counties and cities. In 1976, CDTC revised its policy structure to add two rotating positions for direct representation of towns and villages. Over the years, these positions have been increasingly reserved for suburban towns. A one-year period as an alternate and a one-year period as member allow the two positions to involve four key town leaders in the UTO policy structure at any time. Over a period of a few years, nearly all of the towns experiencing development pressure have a direct presence at the MPO table. The effect of this (particularly relative to other Waste in New York) is a greater awareness and appreciation of the MPO and its responsibility by communities experiencing development pressure. 4 Step 2. Shifted Regional Transportation Plan Focus CDTC's first generation regional plan completed in 1971 provided a major highway element and transit element. The highway element was composed primarily of bypasses and other new expressways and surface arterials. Many of these projects proved to be infeasible, having, been evaluated primarily on the basis of their contribution to the overall transportation system not on the basis of their acceptability to the community. In 1981, the regional transportation plan was thoroughly revised. The new plan set priorities among twenty-four corridors and areas containing traffic congestion, high accident rates or physical deterioration. The new plan stated that no specific recommendation would be placed on the regional plan until after a localized study was completed. The result of this action was to shift attention from the state (what is the state proposing for our community?) to the community (what do we want to see happen?) in a cooperative process for finding acceptable solutions. In recent years, relative priorities among various corridors and areas were reassessed based on current conditions and ten-year projections of congestion and development. The emphasis on local solutions remains, however. Step 3. Assuming the Modeling Function While the location of the transportation model does not appear to be central to a discussion of land use policy, CDTC's choice in 1987 to establish its own modeling, capabilities was significant in meeting the land use challenge. Shortly after CDTC's decision was made, NYSDOT shut down its own modeling procedures. From that point, CDTC became the source of official traffic forecasts and modeling guidance. Further, CDTC's investment in data collection for model calibration improved its technical credibility in the eyes of local government. At the point that a model became available through the MPO, local government interest in exploring land use / transportation issues increased significantly. Step 4. Cooperative Transportation Plans The most significant initiative taken by CDTC has been to position the needed local plans as an opportunity for local government. Beginning in 1988, CDTC began entering into contractual agreements with individual communities on the request of the community. The scope of the 5 work is mutually determined to both address local concerns and advance regional system L planning. Transportation modeling and alternatives assessment is performed by CDTC staff. Basic land use information and definition of future land use scenarios is provided by the community. The prime 'client" is the town planning board. Costs of the effort vary with the scope and range from approximately $30,000 to close to $80,000. 'ne community's share of the cost also varies, depending upon the issues. Communities have committed as little as $8,000 and as much as $40,000 in support of CDTC staff work. To date, CDTC has contracted for work in six separate municipalities; a seventh study will begin shortly. While these efforts were scheduled in response to community interest, they parallel regional priorities well. The seven studies, combined with traditional corridor studies performed by CDTC and NYSDOT without a contractual relationship with the municipality, cover eight of the ten most congested corridors in the metropolitan area. (The other two are expressway corridors.) Two of the seven study efforts cover entire towns; the remainder focus on particular areas or specific corridors. Figure I indicates the locations of these contractual agreements for land use and transportation studies. These studies have, to varying degrees, resolved long standing issues regarding the desirability of highway widening in these communities. They have also raised and begun the discussion toward resolving issues of access management, appropriate levels of 'build out" and equitable levels of financial contributions to be required of developers to mitigate traffic impacts. Requirements for demand management and supplemental transit service have also derived from these efforts. Step 5. Public-Private Financing Policy In February 1989, the New York State Department of Transportation issued a policy on public-private highway financing. For the first time, the state indicated that it would expect contributions from municipalities for highway improvements on state highways necessitated by cumulative local development. Prior to this point, only large scale developments that individually triggered improvements would be required to pay for or carry out highway work. Seizing the opening offered by NYSDOT, CDTC worked with local governments and the business community and released its "Public - Private Highway Financing Policy" in September, 1989. The policy provides alternative approaches (focussing either on new development or all development in a corridor) to carefully associate trip impacts from individual properties with the costs of accommodating cumulative growth. 6 Click HERE for graphic. These formulas have been applied to development projects both on and off the state system in several communities and serve as the underpinning of shared cost (combined federal aid mitigation fee) projects included in CDTC's transportation improvement program. Step 6. Provision of Technical Assistance CDTC has long been responsive to community concerns, and has programmed staff time for provision of services" on call. This commitment was redoubled in the late 1980's after development of regional modeling capabilities. CDTC currently offers technical assistance to all communities in the review of site impacts of development projects. This service is used to varying degrees by communities; the town of Colonie is the most active and contractually supplements CDTC's federal funding with $20,000 annually in town funds to carry out this activity. These funds are used to review projects, calculate mitigation fees and recommend specific actions to require of developers that advance system plans. The town has collected over $2,000,000 through this process toward implementing the transportation plan identified in a Generic Environmental Impact Study (GEIS) of the airport area. The GEIS was an outgrowth of a cooperative transportation plan effort of CDTC's in the same study area. This level of "hands on" involvement in development actions provides an opportunity to ensure that systems-level, long range transportation issues are addressed (where feasible) in everyday actions by the community. CDTC is making efforts to ensure coordination of recommendations regarding systems-level issues with comments from NYSDOT and the county. I Step 7. TIP Screening Criteria In 1992, CDTC revised its Transportation Improvement Program (UP) project evaluation process to reflect considerations of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA). The process developed in conjunction with environmental groups and other interested parties provides three stages of TIP development - - screening, merit evaluation and programming. The merit evaluation process is a refinement of historic CDTC objective and subjective evaluation of projects across a broad range of issues (impacts on travel cost, mode choice, accident cost, pavement condition, air quality, etc...). Programming is performed by using, "fact sheets" for each candidate project and consciously attempting to select the "best" projects while balancing funding commitments by geographic area, mode and project type. With respect to advancing land use planning objectives, the screening criteria provides the greatest leverage in the process. Largely because of CDTC's success with communities in 8 addressing high-priority corridors with integrated land use transportation studies, CDTC's participants were willing to establish the requirement for land use management as a prerequisite for highway work. Essentially, for any air quality "non-exempt" highway project (linear widening, highway construction on new alignment) to. be evaluated, there must be a commitment to land use management from the community. Specifically, CDTC's screening, process includes five "consistency" requirements that must be met. They are: 1. AU projects must be consistent with the regional transportation plan. 2. All projects must be consistent with or complementary with the facility in the adjacent jurisdiction if the project is near or crosses a municipal boundary. 3. Fixed capacity improvements are required to be linked to local land use management. (Capacity projects designed primarily to serve through traffic or strategic statewide concerns are not addressed by this requirement.) 4. AU projects must be consistent with community desires as documented in local land use plans or other policy documents, at public meetings, or through other means. 5. All projects must address at least one of the fifteen factors of ISTEA. The fact that most of the candidate highway projects considered during the 1993-98 five year TIP update were derived from CDTC's local studies made the land use management requirement easy to put in place. Once in place, the policy can be continued in future years as additional leverage with communities to encourage comprehensive planning -- CDTC will not entertain highway capacity projects without use planning and access management commitments. Already, the policy has been extended in practice by the regional office of NYSDOT. NYSDOT is requiring an access management plan from a suburban town prior to designing a pavement reconstruction project that will include a flush median. This project type was not covered by CDTC's screening criterion for land use management - reconstruction and median projects are "exempt" air quality projects. Step 8. TIP Funding Priority The preceding steps positioned CDTC to make good on its commitments to integrated land use and transportation planning. Cooperative studies having taken place in high priority corridors, 9 projects in these corridors passed the screen of land use management. The merit evaluation confirmed their benefits and cost- effectiveness. As a result, the increased federal funding authorizations from ISTEA and the 'project selection flexibility provided to MP0s through ISTEA was used in large part to implement CDTC's regional plan. Major commitments were made to regional initiatives, including expressway surveillance, arterial signal coordination, park-and-ride lot construction and travel demand management. The funding and flexibility also provided for commitment to work in the high priority corridors assessed in the integrated plans. Over S 150 million in working in these areas is proc,rammed over the next eight to ten years. The public-private financing policy assisted in this commitment; several projects require significant private contributions through mitigation fees or development district assessments. The total private funding, obligation is $18 million over five years. Step 9. Corridor Management Initiative CDTC's cooperative plans with communities have successfully addressed transportation system improvements and basic land use plans. However, they do not fully provide communities with the tools to carry out the land use half of the commitments. In 1993, CDTC used the ISTEA flexibility to set aside $500,000 of Surface Transportation Program funds ($100,000 per year for five years) for corridor management. Specifically, CDTC's program is an 80/20 challenge grant program to individual communities, counties or cooperative efforts of multiple municipalities. The focus of the program is on consultant work necessary to revise zoning, ordinances, revise planned development district ordinances, revise parking ordinances, create site design standards, adopt official street maps and similar items. Traditional traffic assessment is not eligible - CDTC's cooperative transportation plan arrangement is still available for that work. It is hoped that land use management actions will better meet intentions along critical corridors with this assistance. CDTC participants fully supported the investment, viewing that protecting transportation function through pro-active corridor management work is far cheaper than rectifying mistakes at a later date. 10 Step 10. "New Visions" Planning CDTC's most recent initiative toward integration of land use and transportation planning is its multi-year "New Visions" initiative. Funding in ISTEA has allowed CDTC to make financial commitments to the majority of its near-term (ten-year) agenda. This has provided the Capital District the opportunity to step back from incremental decisions to more fundamental choices where is the region heading? - what is the area's attitude toward accommodation of single occupant vehicle (SOV) travel? - what is the future of the older urban areas? - how will continued suburbanization influence quality of life? These "big picture" issues cannot be addressed adequately in the context of TIP development or even in the context of a cooperative land use and transportation plan for a single community or travel corridor. For this reason, CDTC has launched a major effort to engage in dialogue and technical analysis of "visions" for the metropolitan area. Initiated in June, 1993, the effort is expected to reach completion in early 1995. It includes the use of nine separate task forces, each focussing on a specific subject. These subjects are: demographics, technology and development patterns; transit futures; urban issues; arterial management; expressway management; bicycle and pedestrian travel; infrastructure renewal; special transportation needs; and, goods movement and freight issues. Over 100 individuals from state and local government, transportation providers and user groups, environmental and community groups and universities are engaged in task force work. Task forces share a common charge: first, to articulate current and null future conditions; second, to identify issues needing attention; third, to suggest actions. A full-day conference with up to 250 attendees is scheduled for December, 199'). Task forces will continue work, with additional full-day conferences in mid 1994 and at the end of 1994. Each task force is required to address several over-riding considerations in addition to the specific subject area. These considerations include land use (as well as environmental quality, equity and resource allocation). Both local land use issues (community and site design) and liz regional land use issues (settlement patterns and urban revitalization) have receive great attention in discussions to date. The congested highway, low density development, single occupant vehicle future of the region has triggered many discussions. A supporting effort is a consultant-assisted examination of fixed guideway transit options. The scope of this work is to specifically examine the land use benefits of light rail or other transit investments; the scope acknowledges that the Capital District does not expect to "grow into" a region that warrants fixed transit investment on a traditional cost-benefit basis. 11 The "New Visions" process may provide CDTC with a clear understanding of the amount of common ground that exists among various constituencies for greater pro-active land use planning. CDTC is well positioned to respond to any vision that emerges from the effort. 12
