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Conference on Performance Measures for Transportation and Livable Communities

SEPTEMBER 7-8, 2011 • AUSTIN, TEXAS

BREAKOUT SESSION 8:
Freight, Economic Development, and Return on Investment Livability Performance Measures

Click on the icon to view a PDF of the slide presentation.

Presiding

JOHN ELIAS, U.S. Department of Transportation

	Freight, Economic, and Global Competitiveness Performance Measures KATHERINE TURNBULL, Texas Transportation Institute
	Using Performance Measures/Indicators to Calculate the Triple Bottom Line LEIGH LANE, Center for Transportation and the Environment, North Carolina State University
	Using Performance Measures to Improve Parking Policies and Livability VALERIE KNEPPER, San Francisco Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission
	Economic Development and Return on Investment Livability Performance Measures KEVIN JOHNS, City of Austin, Texas

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Freight, Economic, and Global Competitiveness Performance Measures

KATHERINE TURNBULL, Texas Transportation Institute

Slides [PDF , 615K]

Katie Turnbull discussed freight, economic, and global competiveness performance measures and livable communities.  She described challenges and opportunities, and highlighted examples of performance measures associated with freight, economic development, and global competiveness from MPOs, state departments of transportation, and transit agencies throughout the country.  She noted that the information presented was from research sponsored by TTI’s Southwest Region University Transportation Center (SWUTC).  Katie covered the following topics in her presentation.

• A literature review examined reports, plans, and websites for MPOs, state departments of transportation, transit agencies, federal agencies, and cities and counties.  Information from economic development groups, port and airport authorities, and recent conferences and workshops was also reviewed.
• The use of performance measures in transportation has traditionally focused on pavement condition, safety, and congestion.  Performance measures related to freight, goods movement, economic development, and global competiveness are not as common and have been more difficult to address.  Adding consideration of livable communities to performance measures on these topics is even more challenging.
• Goals currently in use by state departments of transportation and MPOs often focus on increasing mobility options for people and goods or providing for the efficient movement of people and goods.  Objectives related to these goals address travel time, trip-time reliability, and access.  Performance measures related to the travel time objective focus on a reduction in actual travel times, increases in travel speeds, and improvements in the travel time index and the fluidity index.  Reliability performance measures address reductions in delay and improvements in the planning time index.  Examples of access performance measures are providing appropriate access rates and increasing the number of destinations.  Thus, truck freight performance measures are often grouped with those for all vehicles.
• The goals and objectives in recent long-range plans of many MPOs and state departments of transportation are broader in scope than previous plans.  Transportation is viewed in a supportive role as a means to an end, not as the end in and of itself.  Transportation goals are also linked to housing, health, land use, and economic goals.
• Examples of goals and objectives from recent plans include promoting places to live with easy access to jobs and services, identifying innovative approaches to economic recovery and long-term prosperity, and expanding connections to the global economy.  Other goals and objectives address increasing gross regional product (GRP) and improving tourist access and the movement of visitors.
• Economic viability goals focus on transportation costs.  Performance measures may address affordability, such as the housing plus transportation (H+T) index.  Other performance measures focus on providing transportation options, improving access to jobs and education, and reducing time wasted in congested traffic.
• Examples of environmental and human health goals and performance measures address reducing emissions from trucks, rail, and ships and increasing the number of clean locomotives and trucks.  Other related goals and objectives focus on off-peak travel and new facilities.
• Examples of economic growth goals address businesses, jobs, and education.  Performance measures in use track the number of new businesses, especially in targeted industries, businesses retention, and business termination.  Other performance measures focus on new jobs, total jobs, and access to education.
• Goals related to economic growth from increasing trade are also in use.  Performance measures associated with these goals focus on increasing air freight cargo, water freight cargo, rail freight cargo, intermodal connections, and international trade.
• The interest in livable communities provides opportunities for transportation professionals to a take leadership role in advancing goals and performance measures related to freight, economic development, and economic competiveness.  Expanded coordination and cooperation is needed, as the involvement of more agencies and the private sector is needed.  Addressing these topics is more complex and additional data will be needed for performance measures.  Transportation can and should play a key role in making communities more livable and enhancing freight, economic development, and global competiveness.

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Using Performance Measures/Indicators to Calculate the Triple Bottom Line

LEIGH LANE, Center for Transportation and the Environment, North Carolina State University

Slides [PDF , 928K]

Leigh Lane discussed two current research projects examining sustainable return on investment (ROI) tools and place-specific sustainability indicators.  One study is the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s (NCDOT) Sustainability Blueprint and the second project is Sustainable ROI:  FHWA Sustainable Highways.  Leigh provided the background for both research projects, presented preliminary findings, and discussed challenges and opportunities.  Leigh covered the following topics in her presentation.

• The conceptual framework for sustainability used in both projects focuses on interaction of social, environmental, and economic factors.  Social elements include equity, human health, community livability, cultural and historic values, and public involvement.  Environmental elements include pollution emissions, climate change, biodiversity, habitat preservation, and aesthetics.  Economic elements include productivity, business activity, employment, tax burden, and trade.
• The NCDOT Sustainability Blueprint projects focuses on ascertaining if sustainable practices are justifiable.  The project is also examining indicators of sustainability for use as performance measures.
• The ROI database organization includes a categorization of research findings.  A searchable database is being developed.  It is organized into descriptive fields addressing scale, sub-type of sustainability, type of measurement, and focus of tool.  Other descriptive fields include the applicable project types, the immediate applicability to transportation ROI, the transportation decision-making phase, and the methodology.
• The assessment of existing tools examined the type of measurement, the focus of the tool, the methodology, and the application of project types.  Other factors examined included the scale, the transportation decision-making phase, and the sub-type of sustainability.  The potential for immediate application to transportation ROI was identified.
• The Sustainable Highways Project Development Credits provides one example of an available tool.  Projects are given points based on 20 factors, which include educational outreach, habitat restoration, freight mobility, bicycle access, and low-emitting materials.  Other factors are long-life pavement design, energy efficient lighting, and construction equipment emissions reduction, noise mitigation, and quality control plans.  Projects receive a bronze, silver, gold, or platinum rating depending on the total number of points.  The Commute Solutions on-line calculator to determine an individuals’ true cost of driving provides a different approach.
• The case studies were examined using HDR’s Sustainable Return on Investment (SROI).  The project’s cash impacts, internal non-cash benefits, and external costs and benefits are used to develop the financial return, financial and internal, and SROI.
• Opportunities associated with developing and applying SROI include providing long-term returns, identifying cascading benefits, and justifying sustainable practices.  For example, first-order, second-order, and third-order transportation benefits may be identified.  First-order benefits include cost reductions on current freight miles, reduced transit times, and increased reliability.  Second-order benefits include firms improving logistics, firms serving a larger market and output increases, and freight miles increase.  Third-order benefits include improved products and new products.  The economies of transportation investments include efficient transportation infrastructure investment, reduced transportation costs, enhanced productivity, and economic growth.
• Challenges associated with SROI include differentiating and addressing causal and correlated connections, data needs, and messaging.  Establishing a means to link indicators to ROI tools represents another challenge.
• Sustainable transportation indicators and ROI overlap.  Indicators and tools are conceptually linked.  An indicator database could help determine the tools to use.  Indicators can be generated from ROI tool outputs.  Tools can be improved with a better set of indicators to provide guidance.
• The importance of place is evident in examining sustainable transportation indicators, performance measures, and SROI.  Place-type indicators might include intersection density, patent density, average lot size, and the ratio of building value to land value.  These indicators relate to the built environment, economic functions, and development sustainability.
• There are also interrelationships between the various indicators.  For example, lower speed limits, better enforcement, traffic calming, and public education may all help reduce speed on roadways.  Changes in speed may influence air pollution, physical activity, noise, and the numbers and severity of collisions.
• Next steps in the study include organizing the tools for use in different phases of the transportation decision-making process and identifying useful and readily available data sources.  Research on causal links will also be undertaken.  A culture change may be needed in some organizations to use these tools and to move to non-traditional measures for decision making.

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Using Performance Measures to Improve Parking Policies and Livability

VALERIE KNEPPER, San Francisco Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission

Slides [PDF , 6.4M]

Valerie Knepper discussed the development and use of parking policies at the MTC in the San Francisco Bay Area.  She described the MTC’s sustainable community strategy target, parking strategies to support smart growth, and analyzing parking structure proposals.  Valerie covered the following topics in her presentation.

• The San Francisco Bay area includes 7 million residents and 4 million jobs.  There are nine counties and 101 cities in the region.  There are also 26 public transit operators and five regional agencies.
• The sprawl development patterns in many parts of the region have led to a disinvestment in the urban core.  The urban core is characterized by stagnant household and employment growth, declining real estate values and tax revenues, deteriorating public infrastructure, and higher infrastructure costs and lower revenue per acre.
• Over 120 priority development areas have been identified in over 60 jurisdictions.  Approximately 425,000 new housing units are planned by 2035 in these areas, which represent 3 percent of the region’s land area and 55 percent of projected regional growth.
• California Senate Bill (SB) 375 requires reducing GHG emissions from automobiles and trucks by 15 percent per capita by 2035.  Aligning transportation, housing growth, and land use planning is key to meeting this target.
• The MTC’s sustainable community strategy targets include climate protection, adequate housing, healthy and safe communities, and open space and agricultural protection.  Other strategy targets are equitable access, economic vitality, transportation system effectiveness, and infrastructure security.
• Parking policies are important for meeting planning these targets.  Excess, free, and subsidized parking generates traffic, VMT, and emissions.  It makes infill more expensive, housing more expensive, and limits reuse of older buildings.  Parking policies can tilt development toward suburban locations with cheaper land.  It is expensive, economically inefficient, and inequitable.  All of these factors influence the ability to meet the sustainability community strategy targets.  Some parking is necessary for components of smart growth, however, including BART/rail, TOD, and downtown infill.
• Parking policies are primarily governed by local land use policies.  Regional parking strategies to support smart growth have been developed to provide a multi-faceted framework to address parking issues.  The policy development was undertaken with local partners.  Technical assistance is available for station area plans.  Support is provided through a technical toolbox, modeling, surveys and training, and consulting.  Another component is analyzing funding proposals for parking structures.
• The smart growth parking tool box and model is available for use by communities and agencies throughout the region.  Seminars and training sessions have been held to introduce the toolbox and model to potential users.
• The smart growth parking policies include strategies by area typology.  These strategies include pricing and managing parking, unbundling parking from other elements, cash-out programs, and support for transit, walking, and biking.  Reducing local requirements, implementing shared parking, and carshare programs represent other strategies.
• Performance measures for parking structures in a smart growth context focus on costs, ridership, revenues, and traffic demand management (TDM) and land use alternatives.  Other considerations may include the impact on GHG emissions, mode share, equity, and community concerns.
• A typical parking structure proposal includes 1,000 spaces and costs $30 million.  These costs include land, construction, operations and maintenance, and the present value of funds.  The calculated cost per space is between $25,000 and $50,000.  The calculated cost per user per day is between $7 and $15.
• The traditional approaches include replacing parking spaces and reserving parking for transit users for free or for a $1 fee.  Other approaches include adding additional spaces for new TOD housing at the standard Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) suburban automobile dependent rates, adding new parking for new TOD retail and businesses at the standard ITE suburban automobile dependent rates, and adding extra spaces to ensure the success of new development.  Large parking structures are very expensive, and are often oversized, with less than 85 percent occupancy.
• The MTC is analyzing parking structures for a number of reasons.  Parking structures are expensive.  There are many parking proposals in the planning process for TODs and station area plans, intermodal stations, and downtown areas.  While TOD supports the MTC regional goals, how much parking to provide is an issue.
• The costs associated with parking structures can be broken down into a number of components.  Capital cost averages approximately $30,000 per parking space.  Land value represents another cost.  Operations and maintenance costs average $1-to-$2 per space per year.  The full cost is approximately $185 per space per month.
• The MTC examined recent parking structure costs at nine facilities.  The construction cost per space ranged from a low of $16,969 to a high of $80,754.  The average construction cost was $31,000 per space.  The estimated construction costs per parking space for 10 planned structures ranges from a low of $18,143 to a high of $40,230.  The average planned construction cost is $24,000 per space.
• A comparison of parking structures and TDM strategies was conducted.  Parking characteristics include the number of spaces, net number of new spaces, revenues, occupancy and turnover, and the cost per new space.  TDM possibilities include pricing strategies – charging, unbundling, and cash-out, shared parking, pedestrian and bicycle, and transit.  The annualized cost of both parking and TDM effectiveness can be developed and compared to the cost per new trip on the transit system.  One approach is to implement TDM to up the cost equivalent of parking space expenses.  Another approach is to resize a parking structure and implement TDM strategies.
• The cost per trip for parking and TDM can be estimated and compared.  The cost per net space, occupancy, and turnover are used to identify the cost per trip of parking.  This cost can be compared to the cost of implementing TDM strategies.  As an example, the parking cost per trip, accounting for only construction costs, was $7.10 per workday at the West Dublin/Pleasanton parking structure and $14.68 per workday at the Fairfield parking structure.
• The Parkway Transit Center provides a case study example.  There are 207 current spaces at the facility.  The proposal was for 710 new spaces for a total of 503 spaces.  The construction cost was $17.5 million, or $25,000 per space or $35,000 per net space.  The monthly cost per new trip was $269 and the daily cost per new trip was $12.  The area within one-fourth mile and within one-half mile of the transit center was examined.  Alternatives to building more parking included improved transit service from one area, improved bicycle and pedestrian access from another area, and sharing an existing underutilized lot.
• Another analysis compared parking structures with TOD housing.  Parking structure costs include the net new spaces, land, construction, operations and maintenance, and revenues.  Housing costs included land, construction costs, and sales and rent revenue.  The annualized cost and the return per square foot can be calculated and compared to transit ridership.  The preliminary findings indicate that compact housing with five or more stories delivers more transit riders.  Housing provides more economic return.  Structured parking costs are between $7-to-$15 per space.  Policy issues to be considered include access, equity, GHG emissions, and design features.
• Surveys and research supports that some people choose to live close to transit.  The easiest groups to attract to TOD are those that prefer transit, urban dual-income households without children, and younger individuals.  The hardest groups to attract include high income suburbanites, automobile-oriented families, price-conscious individuals, and families focusing on children, automobiles, and schools.  Possible groups to attract include older couples and ambitious urbanites.  The results support designing TOD housing for people who want to use transit.  Possible features include reduced parking, unbundling parking, providing transit benefits, and providing carshare, walk, and bike amenities.
• The structured parking versus housing preliminary findings from the analysis indicates that housing with five or more stories delivers more BART riders than parking structures.  Further, housing, which is the highest economic return of land uses in suburban settings, provides positive financial returns and more economic value than parking.  Structured parking costs are between $5-to-$15 per space.  Other policy issues, such as access, equity, GHG emissions, design, and community concerns need to be considered.  Finally, some parking is necessary for regional attractions, like BART, but it can be minimized and shared.
• In conclusion, parking policies are an important component of smart growth policies and better parking policies are necessary to achieve the MTC performance targets.  Pricing policies that show drivers the costs of parking are essential, as is giving consumers choices with prices.  Parking structures should be analyzed and compared with alternatives, such as housing, TDM, transit ridership, economics, equity, and GHG emissions.  Other comparisons include right size parking and funding TDM.  Regional parking policies should be considered, along with benchmarks and flexible standards.

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Economic Development and Return on Investment Livability Performance Measures

KEVIN JOHNS, City of Austin, Texas

Kevin Johns discussed the Sustainable Places Project.  He described the project focus, partners, and activities.  Kevin covered the following topics in his presentation.

• CAPCOG received a $3.7 million HUD Sustainable Communities Planning Grant for the Sustainable Places Project.  Project participants include the cities of Austin, Round Rock, and San Marcos; CAMPO; Envision Central Texas; the Center for Sustainable Development at the University of Texas; and IBM.
• The project includes the development of a new analytical tool using IBM’s super computers.  The tool will provide an innovative model for planning and evaluating future development that integrates economic development, housing choices, mobility, and sustainability.
• The analytical tool will be tested at demonstration sites throughout the region.  These demonstration sites will focus on activity centers.  It is anticipated that at least one demonstration site will be selected from each of the five counties included in the CAMPO 2035 Plan.  It is also anticipated that the demonstration sites will include a mix of larger and smaller projects in urban, suburban, and rural locations.  An application process is being used to identify and select the demonstration sites.  Applications were due August 31, 2011. In addition to developing and applying the new analytical tool to assess alternatives at the sites, ongoing technical assistance will also be provided.  The project is scheduled to be completed over a two-year time period.

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