Engagement and Evaluation Tools in Developing and Ranking Alternative Scenarios – the case of the East-West and North-South Corridors in Central Maryland.

Monday, September 19: 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
Location: Great Hall

 

Reinaldo Germano dos Santos

Senior Transportation Planner, Foursquare ITP

PRESENTATION DESCRIPTION

Considering equity, funding, and future land use and demographics, the Maryland Department of Transportation, Maryland Transit Administration (MDOT MTA) has implemented engagement and evaluation processes to develop regional transit corridor planning scenarios. The Maryland Metro/Transit Funding Act, passed by the Maryland State Legislature in 2018, required the MDOT MTA to initiate a Regional Transit Plan (RTP) for Central Maryland that defined public transportation goals over 25 years. The RTP identified strategies for transit network improvements that include 30 regional transit corridors across jurisdictions in Central Maryland. The corridors identified in the plan did not include specific routes, service patterns, levels of service, potential stations, or transit mode of travel. To prepare these corridors for successful transit investments, MDOT MTA started feasibility studies of the two first regional transit corridors. The feasibility study phase included structured public and stakeholders engagement and partially automatized calculation of measures of effectiveness to develop alternative scenarios. The two first corridors, East-West and North-South, were divided into sections, and each section included two to three alternative alignments. The public, engaged through a survey, and stakeholders, engaged through workshops, helped the project team narrow which alignments should move forward to alternative design. Building upon the methodology to define alignments, MDOT MTA defined alternatives based on funding and demographic scenarios that helped inform decisions such as modes, tunneling, and station spacing. Also part of this process was the calculation of a series of measures of effectiveness using R scripts to speed up the computing process and allow for multiple iterations. Calculated for the initial year and 25-year horizon, the metrics focused on the impact of each alignment in providing access to jobs and the number of low-income households, minority populations, and other transit-oriented populations within a ¼-mile buffer from stations. Results allowed for raking alternative scenarios against the study goals.

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY

Reinaldo Germano is a planner with extensive experience in the field of public transportation planning. At Foursquare ITP, he works mainly with corridor planning, transit operations, and regional and statewide planning projects. He is currently working on two corridor studies in the Baltimore region and an intercity bus study for the state of Georgia. His key projects include conducting a public transportation inventory and assessment in the Appalachian Region, studying a new bus operating division for WMATA, and developing a series of guidebooks on transit technology practices at small transit agencies. Before joining Foursquare ITP, Reinaldo conducted studies and on-the-ground support for cities throughout Brazil looking to improve Bus Rapid Transit operation and provide multimodal transportation options.