TIP EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The SMMPO’s Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) is the primary plan that guides all state and federally funded transportation improvements in southeastern Massachusetts. It is a federally required, 5-year document that that lists all transportation projects in the region by federal funding category, including roads, bridges, transit and alternative projects such as bicycle and pedestrian accommodations. The TIP is developed annually and is subject to amendment and adjustment at any time. Each program year of the TIP coincides with the Federal Fiscal Year, October 1 through September 30. All projects are identified by fiscal year and federal funding category and include cost. The total cost of the projects programmed in the TIP must be constrained to available funding, be consistent with the long-range Regional Transportation Plan (RTP), and include an annual element, or listing, of projects to be advertised in the first year of the TIP.

The TIP is developed annually by the SRPEDD Transportation Planning staff, acting as staff to the Southeastern Massachusetts Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for southeastern Massachusetts in consultation with federal, state and local officials, adjacent MPO’s, the state of Rhode Island, transit authorities and the public. Regional priorities for projects are established by the Joint Transportation Planning Group (JTPG), which acts as the transportation policy advisory group to the MPO, and is a forum for public participation for transportation planning in the region.

The Southeastern Massachusetts MPO consists of thirteen members representing the following: Secretary of the Executive Office of Transportation and Public Works; MassDOT Highway Administrator;  Chairman of the Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District (SRPEDD) Commission; Administrators of the Southeastern Regional Transit Authority (SRTA) and Greater Attleboro Taunton Regional Transit Authority (GATRA);  Mayors of Attleboro, Fall River, New Bedford and Taunton; and Members of four Boards of Selectmen in the SRPEDD Region to be elected by the SRPEDD Commission.

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT

The process of developing a project begins with identifying a need within a community. Once the need is identified, the project’s proponent (the community) should meet with SRPEDD and the staff of the MassDOT District 5 office before a project’s concept (or scope) is formally developed. An informal review can address any questions and determine any issues with a proposed project. This will also eliminate the possibility of a project getting rejected during the development process.

Public outreach is critical and should be initiated as early on in the project development as possible to ensure participation. Public outreach should be continued throughout the process, but it is particularly important early in the development of a project. A well-informed community increases the chances for acceptance and support of a project, improving the opportunity for that project to proceed and ultimately, receive funding.

PERFORMANCE BASED PLANNING AND MEASURES

Performance Based Planning and Measures requires critical changes to the planning process by ensuring that investment priorities assist in meeting performance targets that would address key areas such as safety, infrastructure condition, congestion, system reliability, emissions and freight movement. This called for the integration of a performance-based approach to decision making in support of the national goals and a greater level of transparency and accountability. The goal is to improve project decision-making and assist in more efficient investments of Federal transportation funds.

In 2016, FHWA passed a rule establishing three performance measures (PM1, PM2, and PM3) that State DOTs and MPOs must track, as required by MAP-21 and the FAST Act. MAP-21 (2012) and the FAST Act (2015) are the latest Transportation Legislation, both signed into law by President Obama to address improvements to the U.S. transportation system. PM1 is improving safety, PM2 is maintain pavement and bridge conditions and PM3 is improving efficiency of the system and freight movement, reducing traffic congestion and reducing emissions. The SMMPO adopts statewide performance measures for all three categories and has integrated them into decision making processes including evaluation criteria and programming decisions.

The Federal Transit Authority (FTA) requires any Regional Transit Agency (RTA) that owns, operates, or manages capital assets used to provide public transportation and receives federal financial assistance under 49 U.S.C. Chapter 53 to develop a transit asset management (TAM) plan. TAM Plans outline how people, processes, and tools come together to address asset management policy and goals, provide accountability and visibility for furthering understanding of leveraging asset management practices and support planning, budgeting, and communications to internal and external stakeholders. The FTA also requires RTA’s that receive federal funds under FTA's Urbanized Area Formula Grants to develop Public Transportation Agency Safety Plans (PTASP) that detail agency safety processes and procedures and set safety performance measures.

PROJECT PRIORITIZATION / EVALUATION CRITERIA

The SMMPO developed a process and set of criteria to evaluate and prioritize the region's TIP projects. All projects included in the TIP have been evaluated and assigned a priority value or score. This process is used as a management tool to identify projects of regional priority and program them accordingly in the TIP. Each project is reviewed to evaluate the impact on, or sensitivity to, each of the criteria categories including  Community Impact & Support, Maintenance & Infrastructure, Safety & Security, Mobility / Congestion,  Livability / Sustainable Development, and Environmental & Resiliency, as well to assist in meeting performance targets for safety, pavement preservation, mobility, freight movement, traffic congestion and emissions.

Through our evaluation criteria, we highlight and provide higher rankings to projects that have been identified in our RTP to ensure that existing and future needs of the regional transportation system are prioritized, as well as advance federal transportation planning factors. Many of these projects have been identified as a need in either our RTP or our regional modal plans. Some have been initiated to address infrastructure maintenance, while others may have been initiated due to a recent uptick in safety issues.

 TITLE VI AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

SRPEDD routinely maps minority, low-income (below poverty level), Limited English Proficiency (LEP), as well as age (particularly older populations), and disability as populations of concern for our Transportation Evaluation Criteria, for public outreach purposes, for the Title VI submissions of our regional transit agencies, for transit route equity analyses and evaluations, and for other general planning purposes. As part of the requirements for the TIP we have extended these efforts into a regional project distribution / Title VI equity analyses.

If a project was located directly in or adjacent to one of the areas identified as having a population of concern by threshold or dot density as EJ, (e.g. minority, low-income), or Title VI, (e.g. LEP, older adults and/or persons with a disability), or if that project directly connected and/or served the identified area, we included the project as falling within one of these areas. We conducted two separate analyses, for the current FFY2022-2026 TIP and for the look-back period of the FFY2017-2021 TIP. Our results for the current FFY2022-2026 TIP show that 13 out of the 14 projects in the TIP fall within, directly connect, or serve Title VI or EJ populations which is 93% of the current projects. Our results for the look-back period of the FFY2017-2021 TIP show that 16 out of the 17 projects in the TIP fall within, directly connect or serve Title VI or EJ populations, which is 94% of the look-back projects.

FUNDING CATEGORIES

Federal funding categories for highway and bridge projects through the FHWA include Bridge (BR), Congestion Mitigation/Air Quality (CMAQ), Earmarks, Emergency Relief (ER), Federal Lands Access Program (FLAP), Ferry Boat Formula Program (FBP), Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP), National Highway Freight Program (NHFP), National Highway Performance Program (NHPP), Non-Federal Aid (NFA),Railroad Highway Crossing Program (Section 130), Surface Transportation Block Grant Program (STBG), and Surface Transportation Block Grant Program – Transportation Alternatives (STBG-TA).

Federal Transit Administration funding programs include Section 5307 Urbanized Area Formula Funding Program, Section 5310 Enhanced Mobility of Seniors and Individuals with Disabilities, Section 5311 Formula Grants for Rural Areas, Section 5337 State of Good Repair Grants, and Section 5339(a) Bus and Bus Facilities.

State and local funding programs include Regional Transit Authority Capital Assistance Program (RTACAP), Mobility Assistance Program (MAP), State Contract Assistance (SCA), Transportation Development Credits (TDC), and Transportation Bond Bill Funding.

The MassDOT Office of Transportation Planning, in consultation with the Regional Planning Agencies, provides each region with yearly targeted federal funding levels for regional priority projects.  The table below displays all highway targets and programmed amounts.