SOUTHERN INDIANA — Kentuckiana Regional Planning and Development Agency officials met Tuesday for the first time since receiving federal approval for its transportation plans.
KIPDA’s Transportation Policy Committee discussed the approval of both its long-range Horizon 2030 transportation plan, its short-range Transportation Improvement Plan and the next steps in planning projects for the region.
“The concern, for at least four years, that we would face a funding freeze is gone,” said David Burton, KIPDA transportation planner.
Approval from the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Transit Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency for the long-range and short-range transportation plans ensured the regional planning agency would continue to receive federal funds for transportation projects.
If the deadline of Dec. 8 was not met, KIPDA would have entered a federal funding freeze. While KIPDA has received federal compliance approval for the plans, the long and short-range plan must still be presented to Indiana and Kentucky. KIPDA will present the plans to the two states in order for them to adopt both into their respective State Transportation Improvement Plans.
The regional planning agency also is set to begin work on its next update to the short-range plan, scheduled for 2014.
Another task set before KIPDA in the next year is to address issues brought up in its certification review. The review is conducted by the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration every four years.
An overall positive review was returned to KIPDA, but it was not without issues that need to be addressed. Comments were returned in three categories of corrective actions, recommendations and commendations.
Corrective actions that KIPDA has been tasked with addressing included the clarification of roles and responsibilities of the Metropolitan Planning Organization and that the planning agreements must be updated to more clearly describe the process used to estimate revenues and costs for particular projects.
Offered as an example — which has been completed for KIPDA’s purposes — was the estimates of the Ohio River Bridges Project that needed to be included in the long-range planning documents.
“There was some extra work that we needed to do to make sure the bridges met that criteria,” said Greg Rawlings, transportation specialist with the Federal Highway Administration, Kentucky Division, referring to revenue and cost estimates being in balance. “As of now, with this next update, it looks like they do.”
Recommendations offered to KIPDA included improving the visibility of public outreach programs, improving the visibility of alternative transportation options available in the region and the need to update the congestion mitigation process.
The commendations KIPDA received were for its van pooling program — through Ticket to Ride — the work done updating its transportation plans and designating American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding and its role in a pilot air quality emission modeling system, known as Motor Vehicle Emission Simulator, or MOVES.
KIPDA transportation planners are expected to present an outline of how the organization will address the issues brought up in the federal certification review at its next meeting.
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