Prioritization of Public Transportation Investments: A Guide for Decision-Makers (2021)

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

67   Interview Guide and List of Agency Interviews A P P E N D I X B Contact Information 1. Name 2. Organization 3. Position and brief overview of responsibilities Prioritization of Transit Capital Expenditures Program, Process, and Funding 4. Please briefly describe the composition of transit capital expenditures that your agency oversees. (For example, what is the balance between state of good repair and expansion?) 5. Please describe or name the processes in which transit capital projects are prioritized by your organization. (For example, within a TIP/STIP, long-range plan, Transit Access Management Plan, or other process). Does transit compete with other modes in prioritization of funding? 6. Please briefly describe how funding relates to the prioritization process. For example, how is the total level of funding for your transit program(s) set? By whom, and is this allocation discretionary? Do you have dedicated funding? Decision Criteria 7. What factors does your agency consider when evaluating and prioritizing transit capital projects? Are these factors addressed in the form of quantitative ratings, qualitative scoring (e.g., 1–10), or some in some other fashion (e.g., pass/fail decision rules, descriptive input)? 8. Are life cycle costs considered when evaluating and prioritizing capital projects? If so, how? 9. How were these criteria agreed upon (e.g., internal process; specified by legislature; guided by MPO or DOT requirements, public input; long-range planning, other)? 10. How are conditions or impacts across multiple goal areas compared? (Are these factors monetized? Weighted in a multicriteria framework? Other?) 11. How is cost-effectiveness considered in your agency’s process? (e.g., are criteria normalized by cost?) 12. For MPOs and DOTs: Are transit investments evaluated using the same criteria as other modes (i.e., multimodal or mode-neutral criteria) or are the criteria transit-specific? 13. If relevant, can you describe how your agency’s transit prioritization process relates to prioritization by other agencies that have input or oversight on the allocation of funds to transit (e.g., subsequent prioritization by an MPO or state DOT of transit agency projects)?

68 Prioritization of Public Transportation Investments: A Guide for Decision-Makers Data and Methods 15. What information/data sources are most important for your transit prioritization process(es)? What analytical capabilities are required? 16. Does data availability or analytical capability limit your agency’s ability to prioritize transit investments with each other or to effectively compete with other modal investments at the regional and statewide levels? Additional Questions 17. What measures or criteria represent the benefits of public transportation most meaningfully? Does your agency apply these measures? Why or why not? 18. Are there measures or criteria used in your current practice that you find lacking? Has your agency experimented with and ultimately chosen not to use others? 19. What further recommendations do you have for our work, or for advancing the state of the practice for prioritizing public transit projects in general? Table 14. Agencies that were interviewed. Agency Name Agency Type Modes Agency Archetype Broward MPO (BMPO) MPO Cross-Modal Growing Transit Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) MPO Cross-Modal Large Legacy System Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) Transit Transit Only Large Legacy System Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) MPO Cross-Modal Large Legacy System Denver Regional Transportation District (RTD) MPO Cross-Modal Growing Transit Genesee County Metropolitan Planning Commission (GCMPC) MPO Cross-Modal Small Fixed-Route Janesville MPO (JMPO) MPO/City Transit Only Small Fixed-Route Lehigh Valley Planning Commission (LVPC) MPO Cross-Modal Growing Transit Massachusetts DOT/Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Transit/ DOT Transit Only Large Legacy System MetroPlan (Flagstaff, Arizona) MPO Cross-Modal Small Fixed-Route Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) MPO Cross-Modal Large Legacy System North Carolina DOT (NCDOT) DOT Cross-Modal Statewide Oregon DOT (ODOT) DOT Transit Only Statewide Prioritization of Transit Operating Expenditures 14. Please describe your organization’s process for prioritizing or allocating funding to transit operations. What types of criteria or information guide this process?

Interview Guide and List of Agency Interviews 69   Note: Some findings from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) were also included in the findings, based on questionnaire research and documents provided by the agency for review. Agency Name Agency Type Modes Agency Archetype The Atlanta-Region Transit Link Authority (ATL) Transit Transit Only Mix of Large Legacy, Growing, & Small Virginia Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment (OIPI) & Department of Rail and Public Transit (DRPT) DOT Cross-Modal and Transit Only Statewide