Minutes of a Public Meeting

 

MINUTES OF A

DEFINITION OF NEEDS, RESOURCES AND REVENUES

MEETING OF THE

GOVERNOR’S TRANSPORTATION VISION 21 TASK FORCE

1:30 p.m., Wednesday, June 21, 2000

Arizona State Capitol

Executive Tower

Phoenix, Arizona

The Definition of Needs, Resources and Revenues Committee of the Governor’s Transportation Vision 21 Task Force met in official session for a meeting at 1:30 p.m., Wednesday, June 21, 2000 with Chairwoman Barbara Ralston presiding. Other members in attendance were Vice Chairman John Mawhinney (arrived at 1:50), Steve Basila, Valerie Manning (arrived at 2:40) Jim Simmons, Lela Steffey, Frank Thorwald and Steve Wheeler. Also present were Alan Maguire, Matt Carpenter and John Carlson, Governor’s Transportation Advisor.

Welcome, Opening Remarks

Ms. Ralston called the meeting to order at 1:34 p.m. and led the pledge of allegiance. She wished to set the stage for what she hoped would be accomplished, moving to the action part of the committee and beginning to formulate thoughts about parameters and criteria for consideration to build alternate plans for the committee to review. She noted that the committee would look at needs information today and revenue information the following month. Mr. Maguire commented that the information gleaned from the two intensive sessions would lay the foundation for creating a plan.

Acceptance of Minutes for April 25, 2000

Action: A motion to approve the minutes, as written, from the April 25, 2000 meeting was made, seconded and carried unanimously.

Mr. Thorwald did mention that he must re-iterate his comments in the approved minutes that there is still a need for a committee brainstorming session.

Update of Needs Database & Development Process

Yonel Grant, Booz-Allen & Hamilton introduced the team that would present and provided an overview of the needs database project. He stated that there are over 10,000 projects in the database.

Ms. Sandra Weir, Mosaic Analytical Planning, provided an in-depth demonstration of the database. She indicated that the database is the result of many documents and that there are two bodies of facts in the database, a documents table and a projects table. She stated that there are 140 different documents in the database and, while there are duplicates between local and regional plans, she stated there is a slim chance there are duplicate documents. She explained the process by which the team had searched for plans that supercede other projects and plans and cited examples of duplicates. She stressed the importance of keeping track of the source of facts about transportation projects and discussed the potential uses for the database in the future. Ms. Weir demonstrated examples of numerous queries created with the database. She outlined the record keeping method and audit trails incorporated in the database.

Mr. Grant outlined the efforts to which the team went to collect the planning documents. Once all the information was collected, they laid out the projects geographically to identify gaps and then made attempts to recover that information. Mr. Maguire verified that the data from plans that are currently being developed would be added.

Mr. Mawhinney asked if there is the potential to identify projects by address. Ms. Weir said that she could query by milepost, but that information is not available on local roads. The milepost data is very accurate on state and interstate roads and queries will be beneficial in tracking pavement preservation projects.

Ms. Weir verified that they have contacted all entities responsible for transportation planning and projects. Gaps will need to be filled in by estimating. The team is 95 percent complete with the data entry of the projects themselves, but not necessarily the costs. The process of inputting the costs is 50 percent complete, and the process of eliminating redundancy is 70 percent complete. Not being sure they would ever reach 100 percent completion on all three items because the database is a living document, Mr. Grant suggested that they would have to decide when to "draw the line in the sand." Mr. Simmons stated his understanding that the final decisions rest with the Task Force, but he believed the consultants should provide recommendations. Mr. Maguire discussed the choices that will have to be made and the limitations on the consultants’ recommendations. He noted that this project represents something that has not been done before. Mr. Simmons said he would prefer to take more time than to present an incomplete report to the Governor.

Mr. Basila suggested that it would be helpful if the committee had an idea of the stage of a project’s design to determine the accuracy of the cost attached to the project. Ms. Weir noted that most of the projects do not include cost information. She added that their top question to the district engineers and modal experts is which projects are complete. Additionally, there is differentiation in the database between wish list projects and approved projects. Mr. Maguire noted that they are creating perhaps a bigger database than just a list of projects that have been studied. The database will include different levels of projects, i.e. conceptual to studies done. He stressed that the projects in the database would never be totaled.

Chairperson Ralston asked if it were possible to encourage the reviewers to only list project needs. She believed it would be more appropriate to make this determination at the local level.

Mr. Thorwald suggested that the timelines be included, because this information might impact project decisions. Mr. Grant confirmed that all projects have timelines listed. Mr. Thorwald expressed an ongoing concern with the goals the committee is trying to accomplish. He stated that until those are clear, the data is a waste of time. Chairperson Ralston stated that this process would have resulted in the creation of a matrix of what exists, needs and gaps.

Team members continued with their presentation on the database and the queries developed to date. Mr. Grant provided a detailed review of a slide depicting the overall project cost distribution and the top projects. To explain how the consultants would confirm the accuracy of the data, Mr. Grant explained that they would develop matrices to identify project types, unit costs and modal costs. They would then compare the matrices to national benchmarking with a broad brush to see if they are in the ballpark with the rest of the country.

Ms. Manning asked if the data collected "shouts" out anything to the consultants in terms of the big picture and planning. Mr. Grant said the expansion numbers being so high struck him and the relatively low preservation project spending compared to other states. He felt this was perhaps due to the youth of Arizona and the recent growth and construction. Mr. Maguire compared Arizona with a state whose goal is not to grow, Colorado, where they have a greater amount of money dedicated to preservation. Mr. Carlson noted that the half-cent regional freeway tax makes a big difference in Arizona in terms of the expansion numbers.

Discussion of Transportation Criteria

Mr. Mark McLaren, SR Beard & Associates presented a report titled: Transportation System and Factors Affecting Growth. He reviewed the functional class summary of the Arizona highway system, noting that 80 percent are classified as local streets with 55 percent being in rural areas. He reviewed the urban versus rural mileage by region, inter-regional bus service, rural transit service, and specific transportation for the elderly and persons with disabilities. He clarified that while there are gaps in service, the dollars provided to private or non-profit agencies are quite substantial. Mr. Carlson added that there are LTAF II funds available to augment the programs referred to by Mr. McLaren.

Mr. Thorwald stated that Greyhound has not serviced a number of cities listed on their route for more than six years, nor is other bus service provided in those cities. Mr. Grant was appreciative of the feedback and said they would do a better job of documenting the source of information.

In an effort to expedite the meeting, Chairperson Ralston asked committee members to jot down their questions from this point and forward them to Mr. Maguire after the meeting.

Mr. McLaren continued his presentation reviewing passenger and freight rail services, the statewide airport system, an intermodal facilities map, and roadways by region and functional classification. Mr. McLaren provided an overview on transportation growth factors and factors affecting growth, including the population density in the state, the urbanization density in Arizona, forecasted population increases on the horizon and by county through the year 2020. Mr. Maguire commented that the good news about the population estimates is that the new census will adjust the numbers. He was confident the numbers were conservative to low at this point with the state numbers being closer to actual than the local numbers. Mr. Maguire indicated that the flash census figures should be out by the end of the year.

Mr. McLaren presented data on employment by county, jobs by industry, and vehicle registrations by county and vehicle type. Ms. Steffey asked the consultant to provide numbers on licensed drivers. Mr. McLaren discussed the emerging intelligent transportation systems (ITS) and the potential for impact on capacity.

Relative to the transportation system demand, Mr. Grant highlighted highway demand by county and vehicle miles traveled, population growth compared to highway demand, demand estimates for inter-regional bus service, geographical transit demand, transit providers and ridership estimates, inter-city rail demand, and air transportation demand, including enplanements by location and type of aircraft.

Mr. Thorwald expressed concern that the transit graphic gives the wrong perspective. He suggested that the consultants request geographic coverage information from the providers. Mr. Grant explained that it is very difficult to map inter-regional transit services because of the lack of data. He agreed that the map might be misleading, especially for rural counties.

Mr. Grant highlighted data collected on commercial air carrier demand, truck demand by corridor and region, freight rail and intermodal freight facilities, freight rail tonnage and the impact of Arizona’s through-freight traffic. He discussed the amount of total freight demand and the impact on the highway/air transportation system if rail facilities are not sufficient. Mr. Grant reviewed predictions related to airfreight and mail freight demand and the challenges involved with growth in aviation demand. He presented a graphic depicting the most commonly cited needs in the Arizona project database, noting that mobility, safety and accessibility were the greatest needs. He noted that a lot of projects referenced no need. Graphics of mobility and accessibility projects by mode and type were discussed. In response to a request by Chairperson Ralston, Mr. Grant provided the definitions of and differences between the terms mobility and accessibility.

Update on Vision 21 Revenue Assessment

With no time to address this subject, Chairperson Ralston asked that the committee members be forwarded the data and information related to this subject well in advance of the next meeting. She asked that the committee members digest the information and be prepared to discuss it. She also asked that the committee members each begin to look at defined needs and be prepared to discuss prioritization of those needs and to provide guidance to the consultant team. She suggested that this discussion would help the consultants in their preparation of alternative proposals for the committee’s consideration.

Mr. Grant requested feedback from the committee on desired outcomes, similar to those developed at the Casa Grande Resolves. Chairperson Ralston agreed with the need to revisit the discussion from that meeting and asked staff to provide the information.

Mr. Thorwald suggested that a meeting needs to be held prior to the scheduled July 26 meeting. Chairperson Ralston agreed but suggested that the committee needs more input on the revenue side before it considers an accelerated meeting schedule. Mr. Thorwald disagreed, feeling strongly that the Task Force and committee need to meet for the purposes of having open dialog. Chairperson Ralston said she would meet with the other chairpersons and discuss the need for additional meetings.

Call to the Public

There were no requests to speak.

Adjourn

The meeting adjourned at 4:23 p.m.

BARBARA RALSTON, Co-Chairperson