Several states, metropolitan areas, and federal increasingly have been undertaking planning and programming activities that require the evaluation of multimodal alternatives. The alternatives analysis requirement of the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and, to some extent, the environmental impact statement (EIS) requirement of examination of all responsible alternatives, provide a starting point for multimodal consecration of alternative transportation systems. However, in many cases, the alternatives are defined within the same mode, such as bus versus light rail or arterial versus freeway expansion. Seldom is there an objective and comprehensive comparison of different modes e.g., building a light rail-line versus expanding a major freeway of expanding an airport versus improving rail service. Yet increasingly, these are exactly the types of decisions that transportation officials are being asked to make, particularly because of more flexible funding. Apparently, no document is available to planners for information on how to perform multimodal evaluation; such a document needs to be developed. This synthesis will be of interest to transportation planners, environmental analysts, and government officials at the federal, state, regional, and local levels. It describes the state of the practice with respect to the procedures and methodologies used by planning agencies at all levels to plan and evaluate alternative multimodal passenger transportation and to integrate these plans with related land use and environmental issues. This report of the Transportation Research Board describes the federal studies and guidelines that are available and presents the findings of an extensive survey of state, regional, and local agencies to identify the evaluation methods that are being used in the practice. Selected case studies for five types of modal evaluation are presented: intercity corridor, regional study, regional screening, urban corridor, and regional programming. (A)
Samenvatting