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HomeMy WebLinkAboutLong Island Transportation Plan RECEIVED 1 1997 Sou old ?o ,n C1ed STATE Of NEW YORK DEPARTMENT Of TRANSPORTATION STATE OFFICE BUILDING 250 VETERANS ~vlEHORIAL HIGHWAY HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. 11788-5518 JOSEPH H. BOARDNAN July 29, 1997 MS. Valerie Scopaz Town of Southold Town Hall, P.O. Box 1179 Southold, NY 11971 Dear Ms. Scopaz: I was pleased to learn of your interest in participating in the Long Island Transportation Plan (LITP) to manage congestion. I invite you to be an active participant in this Plan by appointing you to the Land Use, Zoning & Funding subcommittee. Each subcommittee has been stzuctured to assure wide and meaningful participation by parties outside the Department. These include both technical and professional pepple, as well as citizen volunteers expressing a topical interest in a particular mobility issue. You and your colleagues on the subcommittee will have the challenging and exciting task of developing strategies to deal with near and long-term mobility needs for the Nassau-Suffolk Region. Enclosed is a copy of questions and answers that will help you in understanding your role as a subcommittee volunteer. Any additional questions you may have may be addressed to our LITP study manager, Wayne Ugolik, or study coordinator, Dave Glass. They can be reached at 516-952-6128. Your willingness to serve in this important post is very much appreciated. It is an assignment from which you will see tangible results. Enc. SOu ~..L~, .J'~ N PLANNING BOARD Study to Develop the Long Island Transportation Plan to Manage Congestion Questions & Answers What will the study do? · The study will identify Long Island's mobility needs using state-of-the-art transportation planning tools. (By "mobility" we mean the movement of people and goods.) · Using input from the public and others, the study will develop ways to deal with mobility needs both in the near-term (5 to 10 years) and the long term (10 to 20 years). · The study will produce the Long Island Transportation Plan to mange congestion (LITP). What is the purpose of the Long Island Transportation Plan to Manage Congestion? · The LITP will provide a coordinated program of projects and strategies to improve the transportation of people and goods on Long Island. The focus will be on highways, transit, bicycling, walking and ways to improve the movement of goods. · The LITP will be implemented over the next twenty years. · The projects and strategies will be cost-effective, efficient, environmentally acceptable and affordable. · The plan will involve shared implementation responsibility including funding, as appropriate, among state, county, local governments and the private sector. · The LITP will eventually be incorporated in the Regional Transportation Plan of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council (NYMTC) which must approve all federal funding for projects in the downstate area which comprises New York City, Long Island and the mid- Hudson valley. We are working with NYMTC as we proceed with this Long Island study. How will plan development work? · A technical advisory committee (TAC) has been established by the State DOT. Among others, members include representatives of county and town governments, the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Transit Administration, the Long Island Association, the Automobile Club of New York, the American Trucking Association, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), as well as representatives of state senator Norman Levy and state assemblyman Robert Sweeney. · In addition, input from six subcommittees will be used to help shape the plan. The subcommittees will identify and explore alternative solutions to identified mobility problems. Each subcommittee will address a specific area related to the plan's development. · The State DOT will combine reasonable, potentially feasible strategies and projects recommended by the subcommittees and others (e.g., recommendations from public meetings) into coordinated "packages" to be implemented in concert in order to effectively improve the movement of people and goods. For example, new commuter bus services may be developed in conjunction with a system of park-and-ride locations and HOV lanes to move more commuters by convenient and time-saving bus service. · The technical advisory committee will then review these programs and recommend their incorporation into the LITP or, based on technical analyses of alternative proposals, revise them. Proposals will be evaluated on how well they manage current and future congestion, whether they are compatible with local quality-of-life and environmental standards, as well as their affordability · Input from the generalFublic is important as strategies are developed for incorporation into the plan. In addition to numerous technical advisors, about thirty citizens have volunteered to participate on one or more of the six subcommittees. What are the six subcommittees? 1. Transit, ridesharing and commuting options. 2. Bicycle and pedestrian options, and special travel needs. 3 How to improve the movement of freight. 4. Dealing with traffic, accidents and highway emergencies. 5. How land use and zoning could help reduce congestion. 6. How best to keep the public involved in the planning process. Do individuals from the general public who volunteered need a technical background in any of the subcommittee areas? · No! We want to work with individuals who have a personal interest in transportation and who want to volunteer to explore mobility issues with us and share their thoughts and ideas about improving the movement of people and goods on Long Island. Will people from the general public be qualified to do this sort of work and provide such important feedback or opinions? · The volunteers will supplement technical advisors. · The volunteers are users of the transportation system and they will have sensitivities that even some experts may not have. As stakeholders in Long Island's transportation future, they will be very qualified. Tell me more about the subcommittees and what they will do at the meetings. · Each subcommittee will meet about six times over a six-month period. · Meetings will be scheduled for late afternoon or early evenings. · Meetings will be facilitated by a transportation professional. · Subcommittee meeting agenda will include, but not be limited to the following: * reviewing the current and future capability of the transportation system to effectively move people and goods on Long Island. * identifying ways to improve the system * reviewing associated costs of improvements and their potential impact on the local environment and quality of life. What other opportunities will there be for the public to be involved during plan development? Starting this fall there will be Public Information and Community Meetings. The State DOT will establish a "Long Island Transportation Plan Web Page" that will provide information to the public about the study, preliminary findings and solicit public input and comments. Radio, television and newspaper informational ads will also be employed. A telephone "hot line" will be established to provide 24-hours-per-day access to the DOT so the public can pose questions or share ideas about the Long Island Transportation Plan to manage congestion. Several public teleconferences are also being scheduled to provide for interaction among study participants, the State DOT and the general public regarding the plan development. What do you anticipate the public involvement to be? Will they be receptive? Will they embrace the plan's findings? Do you anticipate any conflicts as a result of the findings? · The Public Participation Program involves all stakeholders in an open planning process. Certainly, various interests will differ in their preferred approach to solving mobility issues; however, by employing a process that screens and evaluates all reasonable alternatives and by sharing the information freely with the public, we are confident that we will develop a broad consensus supportive of the plan's findings and recommendations. Who is paying for this plan? How much does it cost? How long until it's done? · The State Department of Transportation is funding this plan. · The LITP is being developed in three phases. 1. Phase One began last summer and involves data collection and development of technical transportation forecasting tools to help identify future travel and traffic conditions. 2. Phase Two just recently began. It will involve the public in shaping new solutions that the region can afford to implement in order to help move people and goods more effectively. The result will be a prioritized, coordinated program of projects and strategies to meet Long Island's expanding transport needs. This will be finished by late 1998. The cost for Phase One and Phase Two combined is $4.6 million. 3. Phase Three will involve final plan preparation. This will include developing schedules, identifying funding requirements and sources, coordinating other program development actions among the numerous stakeholders involved in implementing the plan, and developing procedures to update the plan as future conditions may warrant. Phase Three will not begin until Phase Two is complete. It will cost, approximately $1.5 million additional and take nine months to finish once Phase Two is complete. How does "building/adding roadways" come into play? Doesn't the State DOT do this anyway? · Building/adding roads may be one of the strategies suggested and evaluated. · Some highway widening may be practical, effective and capable of implementation. Feasible improvements to the highway system can complement and enhance other actions such as improved transit alternatives. · However, since it has become clear that building and expanding roads is not going to solve all congestion and mobility problems, the State DOT wants to work with others including local governments, the private sector and the general public to identify different ways to move people and goods more effectively. Highway expansion is only one type of improvement. This is why there are other subcommittees to deal with solutions that will be integrated into the overall Long Island Transportation Plan to manage congestion. Realistically, will the Long Island Transportation Plan to Manage Congestion work? · Since the public and other stakeholders are involved from the very beginning, the plan will indeed work. · The Long Island Transportation Plan to Manage Congestion will look at the entire transportation system on Long Island. The plan will develop and integrate the projects and strategies that are needed to effectively move people and goods on Long Island both now and in the future. · When projects are preceded by careful planning, they work! Is it realistic to think that such a plan can solve this area's congestion problems? · We can move more people and goods more effectively on Long Island. · To do that, the Long Island Transportation Plan to manage congestion (LITP) will look at various modes of travel and transport including automobile, transit, bicycling and walking as well as freight movement modes. · The LITP will incorporate plans being developed by other agencies including county and town plans and plans of the MTA and LIRR. Close coordination with the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council's (NYMTC's) Regional Transportation Plan is also being accomplished. The LITP will als() embrace the concept of"shared responsibility for managing congestion" among the stakeholders in Long Island's transportation future. These stakeholders include among others, local governments, the private business sector and the traveling public. By including these stakeholders into the planning process right from the beginning, we are confident that we will develop and implement a plan that will manage congestion so that we can successfully support expansion of Long Island's economy and provide for the mobility of its residents while protecting the Island's cherished quality of life. What is the role of the county, towns and villages in this plan? Will they be part of the planning process? · Yes! First, they participate on the technical advisory committee (TAC) or on any number of the study's subcommittees. · Secondly, they participate as reviewers of the study findings and the alternative strategies posed. Numerous community meetings will be held during the study to discuss localized issues, findings and proposed solutions. Local community environmental issues and quality of life will be key factors used to screen various plan proposals before they axe finalized. Thus, local governments will have an important role in plan development. · Lastly, local governments will participate in implementing some of the approved plan recommendations. How does such a plan affect a current project? · Current projects for which the preliminary design phases are completed or for which a preferred alternative has already been planned are not affected by the Long Island Transportation Plan to manage congestion. This applies to all transportation agencies' projects and plans (i.e., those of county and local governments, MTA, LIRR, etc.) · The LITP will enhance current projects and plans by building off of them.