Maintaining Project Consistency Throughout the Project Development Process

Federal and state transportation planning statutory and regulatory laws require transportation projects to be consistent with transportation plans and improvement programs before a federal action can be taken on a project requiring one. Significant delays in project delivery can occur if the federal funding is withheld when projects are found to be inconsistent with transportation plans and improvement programs. This issue is especially critical for projects in nonattainment and maintenance areas because an inconsistent project might trigger a conformity failure or delayed determination for the entire plan and/or program. This paper describes the main challenges leading to project inconsistencies, which are insufficient communication over the changes to projects’ design concept and scope, cost, and estimated letting date. The research team developed a comprehensive background informational, Project Consistency Guidebook, and a project consistency checklist for practitioners to check for consistency during the project development process. The guidebook explains how project planning and development interact with the regional and project level air quality conformity process, and details procedures and tools that Departments of Transportation and Metropolitan Planning Organizations can use to understand and maintain project consistency.

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• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADA10 Statewide Multimodal Transportation Planning.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Kenney, Megan
  • Farzaneh, Mohamadreza
  • Prozzi, Jolanda
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2015-1-11 to 2015-1-15
• Date: 2015

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 19p
• Monograph Title: TRB 94th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Metropolitan planning organizations; Programming (Planning); State departments of transportation; Transportation planning
• Uncontrolled Terms: Project consistency; Project development process; Transportation projects
• Subject Areas: Planning and Forecasting; Transportation (General); I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01559860
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 15-4732
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Apr 6 2015 7:17PM