US Department of Transportation

FHWA PlanWorks: Better Planning, Better Projects

US Department of Transportation

FHWA Planworks: Better Planning, Better Projects

COR-5: Approve Evaluation Criteria, Methods and Measures

Corridor Planning

Description:

At this Key Decision, evaluation criteria, methods and measures are approved that will allow decision-makers to compare solutions that address the corridor's opportunities and problems and are consistent with the approved corridor goals. The evaluation criteria, methods and measures are developed in consideration of transportation, community, and environment. They are informed by the evaluation criteria, methods and measures used in long range transportation planning and are considered during environmental review to ensure consistency across the entire transportation decision making process.

There is information developed in prior Key Decisions that informs this step. In order to effectively execute this Key Decision there is essential information created at COR-3 related to goals for the corridor.

Basics:

The first table describes the purpose and anticipated outcome of a Key Decision. If the decision is federally mandated, the purpose and outcome will relate to the legal intent.

The second table describes roles for key partners with legal decision making authority in the transportation process. The roles indicate the influence a partner can have on a decision, and show each partner where their input is most needed. For a full understanding of roles see the Partner Portal.

Purpose

To define a methodology that includes criteria to enable a comparison and selection of solutions that address the corridor's opportunities and deficiencies and that address the approved goals.

Outcome

Specific criteria, methods, and measures for selecting solutions for the corridor.

Partner	Role Type	Description
MPO	Decision Maker (urban), No Role (rural)	Approves evaluation criteria to allow a performance-based comparison of solutions in order to select the preferred.
FHWA/FTA	Observer	Observes that all relevant criteria are included in the evaluation methodology.
State DOT	Advisor (urban), Decision Maker (rural)	Provides an understanding of state support for criteria and performance measures.
Resource Agency	Advisor	Support the identification and use of evaluation criteria, methods and measures that reflect environmental visions, goals and priorities, are informed by environmental planning and incorporate environmental metrics.
Public Transportation Operator(s)	Advisor	Provides an understanding of transit support for criteria and performance measures.

Links to Decisions

This table identifies the connection to other Key Decisions. The linkages highlight the importance of collaboration across transportation phases. Practitioners are encouraged to document the basis of the decision and consider information from previous Key Decisions.

Transportation Phases	Key Decision	What is Linked?	Purpose of Linkage
From Long Range Transportation Planning	LRP-3 - Approve Evaluation Criteria, Methods and Measures	Criteria methods and measures from the LRTP	To help ensure decision making is consistent across phases
From Long Range Transportation Planning	LRP-5 - Approve Financial Assumptions	Financial assumptions	To inform the evaluation criteria, methods and measures in corridor planning
To Environmental Review/NEPA Merged with Permitting	ENV-5 - Approve Evaluation Criteria, Methods and Measures	Information about the evaluation criteria, methods and measures used in corridor planning	To inform the environmental review process, helping to ensure that decision making remains consistent across phases.

Questions to Consider

Questions are a way to gather input from partners and stakeholders that can be used to inform the decision. Decision makers can discuss the questions provided to ensure a broad array of interests are considered to support a collaborative process. Questions also allow staff to collect stakeholder interests, ensure these are included in the decision, and provide a response based on the decision outcome. Although Public Transportation is not represented by a PlanWorks Application, the information provided may be useful in a collaborative transportation process.

Category	Questions to Consider
Long Range Planning	Are the criteria, methodology, and measures compatible with those of the LRTP? Are there any major differences to consider? Have the assumptions of the LRTP been used to inform the selection of evaluation criteria, methods and measures?
Programming	No specific questions
Corridor Planning	Are the evaluation criteria, methods, and measures flexible enough to evaluate feasible procurement models (e.g., design-build or design-build-operate)? Will the criteria and measures be effective to differentiate between solution sets? Do the evaluation criteria and measures help evaluate the advantages and risks of different corridor investment strategies?
Environmental Review	Do the evaluation criteria, methods and measures consider what will be needed during environmental review?
Bicycles and Pedestrians	Are accessibility, bicycle, and pedestrian concerns addressed by the proposed criteria, methodology, and measures? Are the criteria, measures, and methods compatible with existing accessibility, pedestrian, and bicycle performance measures that relate to the corridor?
Capital Improvement	Are there existing capital improvement criteria, measures, or methods that would be useful in the development of those for transportation?
Economic Development	Are the evaluation criteria, methods, and measures compatible with those identified through existing economic development plans? Can the criteria, methods, and measures make use of relevant existing economic data? Have tools and analytical methods to measure economic impacts at the corridor plan level been considered? How capable are the analysis methods for producing this information?
Freight	Have methods to evaluate freight traffic and the influences of logistics patterns been identified? Are there partners that can assist with this evaluation? Do existing freight plans identify evaluation criteria, methods, and measures? Are these appropriate for corridor planning? Has feedback on measures to account for freight concerns, such as logistics and goods-movement flows or freight travel time reliability, been collected? Will the criteria, methods, and measures allow comparison and ranking of project impacts on freight concerns while also reflecting the benefits of freight?
Greenhouse Gas Emissions	How will the GHG impacts of potential corridor solutions be evaluated? Is there agreement on which plans and data will be used in the assessment? What GHG criteria will be used to evaluate transportation investment strategies and scenarios (e.g., CO2, CO2 equivalent, GHG per capita, or VMT, as a proxy)? What will be the baseline for measuring GHG emissions reduction – business as usual or GHG emissions of a given year?
Health in Transportation	How can the degree to which proposed transportation solutions affect the corridor’s health concerns, priorities, and goals be measured? How do the selected criteria, methods, and performance measures reflect input from health stakeholders and the community, concerns about health equity, and the health priorities of the community? Does this agency and identified health partners have sufficient data analysis capabilities to effectively use these health criteria? Are the selected criteria compatible with existing health goals, plans, and policies in the corridor?
Human Environment and Communities	Will the criteria, methods, and measures assess whether potential solutions are compatible with goals relating to equity, quality of life, and livability? Have community and human environment stakeholders proposed any evaluation criteria, methods, and measures? Is the data and analysis capability needed to apply these criteria, methods, and measures available in the corridor planning team? Can human environment partners provide support?
Land Use	Are the criteria, methods, and measures compatible with existing land use goals and smart growth policies?
Linking Planning and Operations	Are the criteria, measures, and methods appropriate for evaluating TSMO strategies?
Natural Environment and Implementing Eco Logical	Are the evaluation criteria, methods, and measures compatible with any identified through ecological planning and/or an agreed-upon ecological crediting strategy? Are the criteria, methods, and measures useful for assessing performance on conservation objectives?
Performance Measures	Are the performance measures meaningful for corridor improvement over time? How do the performance measures selected relate to regional/statewide performance reporting commitments? To what extent does the agency have "control" over the factors that influence the measure outcome? Is the support of external partners/stakeholders necessary to implement individual measures? How will stakeholders identify or understand what is good performance on approved goals?
Planning and Environment Linkages	Have the evaluation criteria, methods, and measures been adequately documented to inform the environmental review process?
Public Private Partnerships	Will the evaluation criteria, measures, and methods be useful for assessing the feasibility of a P3 solution? Has any industry outreach such as a Request for Information been conducted to inform the methods and measures?
Public Transportation	Are public transportation-related performance measures being considered? Are there established public transportation goals for the corridor to measure against? Do public transportation stakeholders support the criteria, methods, and measures being considered?
Safety	Have safety partners recommended any specific criteria, methods, and measures to consider? Do the approved criteria, methods, and measures include those needed to evaluate solution sets with respect to safety?
Stakeholder Collaboration	What do stakeholders think should be improved, and how would they recognize improvement? Are the evaluation criteria and measures broad enough to incorporate all stakeholder interests? If not, what interests are not included and why? How do the evaluation criteria and measures reflect both stakeholder interests and professional judgment? How will the outcome of this decision be shared with stakeholders?
Transportation Conformity	This Key Decision is not associated with the Application.
Visioning and Transportation	Are the proposed criteria, methods, and measures compatible with approved goals, adopted future, and any performance measures from the visioning process? Will the approved criteria, methods, and measures support demonstrating the preferred solution set support for the vision and adopted future?

Data

The following list of data may be needed to support the Key Decision. Practitioners collect this information for decision makers to consider. Although Public Transportation is not represented by a PlanWorks Application, the information provided may be useful in a collaborative transportation process.

Category	Data to Consider
Long Range Planning	Financial assumptions and evaluation criteria, methods and measures used in long range planning
Programming	No specific data
Corridor Planning	Approved goals for the corridor
Environmental Review	Compatibility with typical requirements for environmental review
Bicycles and Pedestrians	Data available to support bicycle and pedestrian performance measures, including infrastructure, crash history, and volumes Data available to support measures of accessibility
Capital Improvement	Evaluation criteria, methods, or measures used in the development of capital improvement plans
Economic Development	Metrics and analytical methods to evaluate economic competitiveness and vitality
Freight	Data on freight logistics and goods movement Feedback on freight measure
Greenhouse Gas Emissions	Baseline GHG emissions and/or method to establish baseline emissions Performance measures, metrics, and methods used in other regions where GHG analysis has been done, with information on the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches Data outputs from previous travel and emissions analyses
Health in Transportation	Health stakeholder and community input Available data and tools to support analysis Assessment of health partners’ data analysis capabilities
Human Environment and Communities	Data to support equity and quality of life evaluation Human environment and community stakeholder input
Land Use	Criteria, measures, and methods from land use Data for evaluating the potential for induced development, induced traffic demand, and congestion Evaluation of smart growth approaches, if applicable
Linking Planning and Operations	Performance measures relating to system reliability Archival operations data and probe data Technical capability to evaluate TSMO strategies
Natural Environment and Implementing Eco Logical	Evaluation criteria, methods, and measures from ecological plans or crediting systems that are relevant in the corridor
Performance Measures	Performance measures and targets Monitoring and reporting commitments Analytical capabilities and data available to address the performance measures Relationship between the corridor goals and those at the regional/statewide level
Planning and Environment Linkages	Criteria, measures, and methods considered in this step, for potential use in subsequent processes
Public Private Partnerships	Data to evaluate P3 projects including potential to generate revenues, level of private sector funding, types of procurement models, and technical innovation Analysis capabilities to evaluate P3 projects Pros and cons of procurement models
Public Transportation	Existing public transportation goals and performance measures for the corridor Data available to support measures relating to multi-modal access and demand
Safety	Safety criteria, methods, and measures Metrics and analytical methods to evaluate safety
Stakeholder Collaboration	Stakeholder input on how to measure progress toward goals
Transportation Conformity	This Key Decision is not associated with the Application.
Visioning and Transportation	Data on performance indicators, goals, and objectives from community visioning Comparison of transportation criteria, methods, and measures to those from visioning

Links to Applications

The interaction between transportation decision making and other planning processes will ensure that important values and goals outside the transportation process are recognized and considered. Although Public Transportation is not represented by a PlanWorks Application, the information provided may be useful in a collaborative transportation process.

Application	Description
Bicycles and Pedestrians	Identify criteria, methods, and measures for evaluating pedestrian, bicycle, and accessibility performance.
Capital Improvement	Shared evaluation criteria increase the possibility that solutions will be compatible. Consider criteria in any area of interest in the corridor, especially for the Human Environment and Communities and Natural Environment and Implementing Eco-Logical.
Economic Development	Confirm that evaluation criteria, methods, and measures are adequate to analyze the corridor plan’s impact on economic development. There may be overlap in evaluation criteria and measures and those addressing Human Environment and Communities, Freight, Planning for Operations, and Public-Private Partnership
Freight	The evaluation criteria, methods, and measures will need to be robust enough to evaluate critical freight concerns.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions	Identify criteria, methods, and measures for understanding the GHG-reduction impacts of the corridor plan.
Health in Transportation	Evaluation criteria, methods, and measures that are useful for health might also be developed as part of the Bicycles and Pedestrians, Freight, Human Environment and Communities, Land Use, or Safety
Human Environment and Communities	The selected evaluation criteria and approach to evaluating the solution sets must work across the full range of interests in the corridor. Similarities between topics may enhance the ability to influence the selection of solutions. Look for synergies with Health in Transportation, Bicycles and Pedestrians, Safety, Land Use, Capital Improvement, and Economic Development.
Land Use	Confirm that criteria, methods, and measures will be consistent with land use goals and smart growth policies. To ensure a holistic approach to the corridor, also consider how land use measures interact with all Application topics.
Linking Planning and Operations	Develop evaluation criteria, methods, and measures that adequately consider TSMO strategies. Supporting Applications may include Capital Improvement and Safety.
Natural Environment and Implementing Eco Logical	Identify criteria, methods, and measures consistent with relevant ecological plans or crediting systems.
Performance Measures	The evaluation criteria, methods, and measures selected at this Key Decision will be used to specifically compare solution sets. However, this is also an opportunity to identify support for regional/statewide performance within a specific corridor. Applications such as Safety, Linking Planning and Operations, Natural Environment and Implementing Eco-Logical, Human Environment and Communities, and Freight will be strongly relevant. However, other Application topics may also be important in the corridor/sub-area.
Planning and Environment Linkages	Adequately document the evaluation criteria, measures, and methods, and any analyses conducted to inform the environmental review process.
Public Private Partnerships	The selected criteria, methods, and measures for evaluating solution sets must include the potential impacts of a P3 solution Assumptions for Land Use, Human Environment and Communities, Natural Environment and Implementing Eco-Logical, and Economic Development must be weighed against this possibility.
Public Transportation	Identify and gather feedback on measures relating to public transportation.
Safety	Information from safety partners participating in the corridor planning process should inform the selection of criteria and measures for evaluating solutions A broad range of criteria for safety will also benefit Bicycles and Pedestrians, Freight, and other interests.
Stakeholder Collaboration	Incorporating stakeholder interests helps to develop robust evaluation criteria, measures, and methodology ensuring each solution set considers a full range of potential benefits and impacts.
Transportation Conformity	This Key Decision is not associated with the Application.
Visioning and Transportation	The selected evaluation criteria and approach to evaluating the solution sets will be useful in demonstrating how transportation improvements in the corridor support the adopted future. There is a strong relationship to Land Use, Economic Development, Human Environment and Communities, and Natural Environment and Implementing Eco-Logical in most visioning processes.

Examples

In - depth case studies of successful practices in collaborative decision making were used to develop the Decision Guide.Links in this table point to a specific paragraph or section of a case study that supports a Key Decision. It is not necessary to read through an entire case study to find the example; however, full versions are available in the Library.

PlanWorks Case Study Examples:
US 64 Asheboro Bypass - Merged NEPA and Section 404 Permitting Processes cor-5

Other Examples:
None.