01340099

Component

In the Washington DC and Baltimore region, a number of federal, state, metropolitan, and local agencies in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia participate in the transportation planning and investment process. Each agency has its own objectives and plays an important role, and interacts with other agencies through formal and informal processes. The influence of each agency on the overall transportation investment process is often limited within their jurisdictional boundaries. The resulting transportation system is the product of previous and current investment decisions made collectively by these agencies. When making transportation investment decisions or providing input to the decision-making process, some agencies rely on well-developed state and local master planning tools, others are often restricted by policy initiatives, emerged priorities, and funding availability. The existing investment decision-making process has its advantages and disadvantages, and there exist alternative processes for transportation funding and resource allocation. This paper describes and analyzes the decision rules and processes currently adopted by various agencies in the Washington DC and Baltimore region. Interviews have been conducted with staff members at the county, metropolitan, state and regional transportation and planning agencies. The key research questions are how multimodal highway and transit investment decisions are made in this region, how transportation funds are allocated to different modes, different jurisdictions, and different projects, and how agencies at different levels of government interact with each other. Figures and tables are developed to visually present the research findings and the actual investment process. Findings suggest that policy initiatives, political factors, and technical evaluation intertwine in the decision-making process, and conflicts often arise when regional and local interests collide. Agencies have developed qualitative and quantitative methods to handle competing objectives and various considerations. Analyzing the existing transportation planning and investment process is the first step toward the comparison of alternative investment processes (e.g. more centralized or decentralized processes), and toward modeling future transportation system states under current and alternative investment processes.

The DVD lists the title of this paper as: Multimodal and Multijurisdictional Transportation Investment Decision Making: Case of Washington, D.C.-Baltimore Region.

01329018

11-4157

English

36p

2011

Transportation Research Board 90th Annual Meeting

DVD

Figures (10) ; References (15) ; Tables (1)

Capital investments; Cooperation; Decision making; Local government agencies; Master plans; Multimodal transportation; Policy making; Regional planning; Resource allocation; Transportation planning

Multijurisdictional planning

Baltimore (Maryland); Washington (District of Columbia); Washington Metropolitan Area

Economics; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2011 Paper #11-4157

TRIS, TRB

Feb 17 2011 6:46PM