Sustainable Development Studies in the New York Metropolitan Region
Gerry Bogacz
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Session:Sustainable Suburban Corridors (Wens. 3/14 10:15 am)

Overview

Sustainable development studies are relatively new approaches to collaborative, community-based planning for both land use and transportation in the New York metropolitan region. Under the auspices of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council, several pilot studies of this type are underway or soon to start in the lower Hudson Valley and on Long Island. This paper will describe the origins of this planning approach in the New York region and provide a description of the approach to these studies as it can be applied to specific situations.

The Metropolitan Transportation Planning Process

The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) is the Federal legislation which authorizes Federal funding for transportation improvements. Signed into law in 1998, TEA-21 carries forward many of the transportation planning requirements of its predecessor bills. These planning mandates must be met on a regional level in order to maintain eligibility for Federal transportation funding.

In major metropolitan regions, TEA-21's planning requirements are carried out through the structure of a Metropolitan Planning Organization, or MPO. MPOs are regional coalitions which provide collaborative forums so that planning for and deciding on the use of Federal transportation funding assistance can be accomplished in a coordinated fashion. The outcomes of the MPO forum are transportation investments in roadway and transit improvements, as well as transportation management measures and transportation planning activities.

In the New York region, there are several MPOs which operate in the thirty-one county metropolitan area focused on New York City and splayed out across downstate New York, northern New Jersey and southwestern Connecticut. Of these, one MPO — the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council — serves an area at the core of this sprawling region. The Council’s area includes ten counties; the five boroughs of New York City, three suburban counties — Westchester, Rockland and Putnam — in the lower Hudson Valley, and the suburban Long Island counties of Nassau and Suffolk.

The Council; known best by its acronym, NYMTC; is an association of governments and transportation providers which was constituted by Memorandum of Understanding in 1982 and designated as an MPO by New York State’s Governor in the same year. NYMTC is one of ten MPOs in the three state metropolitan region which are remnants of the Tri-State Regional Planning Commission. The Commission, which was constituted through a compact between the three states, was dissolved by the states just prior to the designation of the smaller MPOs.

NYMTC’s voting membership includes the five suburban counties in its region, two agencies — the departments of City Planning and Transportation — representing New York City, the New York State Department of Transportation and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Advisory members include Federal agency representatives from the Department of Transportation and Environmental Protection Agency; the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation; and agency representatives from New Jersey and from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. NYMTC’s primary mission is to provide a collaborative forum through which its agencies can achieve a consensus on the use of Federal transportation funds.

As an MPO, NYMTC is mandated to produce three products in its planning process. These are a long-range Regional Transportation Plan, a medium-range Transportation Improvement Program, and an annual work program of planning activities. The process which NYMTC employs in the development of these products provides the structure for collaborative planning and decision-making for transportation investments.

A Framework for Regional Planning

NYMTC’s long-range Regional Transportation Plan, entitled Mobility for the Millennium, was originally adopted in 1994 and updated in 1999. The Plan provides a long-range assessment of infrastructure needs, a long-range financial analysis and a framework of nine regional goals which provide a strategic framework for NYMTC’s planning activities and for its investment decisions as expressed in the Transportation Improvement Program.

The 1999 Plan update featured the addition of two new regional goals; one involving the region’s quality of life and the second focused on re-establishing the connection between land use planning and transportation planning. Sustainable development studies in NYMTC’s region resulted directly from efforts to implement this Land Use/Transportation Connection goal.

NYMTC’s regional Land Use/Transportation Connection goal is to expand awareness of the links between decision-making on the use of land and the provision of transportation services in order to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of transportation investments. Formulating an approach to this goal proved challenging. New York State is a "home rule" state in which all development decisions are made at the local municipal level. At the same time, transportation planning happens at a much more regional level in NYMTC’s region. Therefore, the challenge lay in attempting to bring together these disparate processes in a coordinated, collaborative manner. The approaches which were developed to pursue this land use-transportation linkage, which are collectively known as the LandTran Program, are built around the idea of thinking regionally and acting locally.

The LandTran Program

NYMTC’s LandTran Program uses Federal and State resources to foster local planning initiatives within the context of the regional Land Use/Transportation Connection goal. These initiatives involve both land use planning and transportation planning. LandTran includes three separate components: educational programs for local elected and planning officials to underscore the importance of coordinated land use and transportation planning, financial support for local master planning efforts with coordinated transportation elements and sustainable development studies undertaken in critical areas or corridors where coordinated land use/transportation planning is warranted due to development pressures and traffic congestion.

In implementing the LandTran Program, NYMTC’s members have chosen to initially undertake several sustainable development studies as pilot initiatives. Four such pilots have been approved in the lower Hudson Valley and one additional pilot study on Long Island. At the time of this writing, two of these studies, in Westchester and Rockland Counties in the lower Hudson Valley, are well advanced and a third in Suffolk County on Long Island is due to start shortly.

NYMTC’s Approach to Sustainable Development Studies

As the pilot studies were being developed, an ad-hoc panel of NYMTC members, environmental advocates and land use experts was convened to assist in scoping a generic approach to sustainable development studies. This generic Scope of Work has been used as a template for each of the pilot studies and has been customized to fit the unique circumstances of each study area.

The key objective of NYMTC’s sustainable development studies is to develop transportation improvements and land use patterns which support and sustain one another in the long-term. To do this, the studies attempt to understand current land use and transportation conditions in the study area, identify community concerns and desires through an inclusive planning process, develop and simulate future land use and transportation scenarios and, finally, foster consensus and inter-municipal agreements in order to implement preferred alternatives.

The key elements included in the Scope of Work for the sustainable development studies include the following:

  • Reconnaissance - a comprehensive review and assessment of local land use and transportation conditions in the study area, including proposed development projects, local land use regulations and policies, programmed transportation improvements and on-going planning studies of various types.
  • Community Visioning - extensive outreach to local community residents, officials and stakeholders in the study area to define issues and develop future scenarios for land use and transportation.
  • Scenario Development and Testing - alternative future scenarios are assembled and simulated with regard to their potential transportation, development, environmental and economic impacts.
  • Sustainable Development Plan - extensive outreach is again used to build consensus on preferred future scenarios. Once consensus is established, preferred alternatives are formalized through a Sustainable Development Plan.
  • Local Agreements - the Sustainable Development Plan is then used to foster local agreements so that future development scenarios may be implemented. These local agreements may take the form of municipal board resolutions, master plan changes, inter-municipal agreements in cases where more than one municipality is involved, and/or generic environmental impact statements. Their objective is to formalize the preferred development alternatives in the local municipal planning processes.
  • Transportation Improvements - preferred transportation solutions which support and are supported by the consensus development scenario are then advanced through NYMTC’s process. Those which are to use Federal transportation funds eventually appear on an approved Transportation Improvement Program.

The generic Scope of Work outlined above is a general approach to sustainable development studies. It is offered as a guideline for the development of studies in specific areas. As noted earlier, this template can and should be customized so that the resulting study fits the unique conditions and circumstances of a particular study area.

Selecting and Funding Sustainable Development Studies

The selection of areas for sustainable development studies depends on a number of factors. Working with local municipal planners, a number of potential areas for these studies have been identified in NYMTC’s Regional Transportation Plan. The areas identified were judged to have a "critical mass" of development pressures, traffic congestion and other transportation issues to warrant consideration for a sustainable development study. Beyond those areas identified in the Plan, other areas for possible studies can also be identified for consideration through requests from NYMTC’s member agencies or through requests to the members by local municipal officials.

Once potential studies have been identified, they are being financed as funding permits through a number of different sources. Chief among them are Federal planning funds programmed through NYMTC’s Unified Planning Work Program, which is updated annually. Other potential funding sources include New York State’s Arterial Access Management Program, the Federal Transportation & Community & System Preservation Pilot Program and other Federal funding sources which have been programmed for specific improvement projects.

Launching the Concept: Pilot Sustainable Development Studies

NYMTC’s member agencies voted in 1999 to launch the concept of sustainable development studies through a series of five pilot efforts in areas identified both in the Regional Transportation Plan and through discussions with local municipal officials. As of this writing, two of these pilot studies are underway in the lower Hudson Valley; one each in Westchester and Rockland counties; and a third will start shortly on the East End of Long Island. These studies vary in scale, scope and complexity; their varied nature is provides an excellent platform on which to test the concept.

The three pilots also vary in terms of how they are managed and financed. All employ Federal planning funds through NYMTC’s Unified Planning Work Program and New York State funding as local match, although the proportion of State funding in the financing package varies. The Hudson Valley studies are also matched by local county funding, while the Long Island study will receive an "in kind" contribution from the involved local municipalities. All of the studies receive a significant contribution of NYMTC staff resources.

Administratively, the Hudson Valley studies are managed by the planning departments of their respective counties and the consultant teams retained to assist in the studies are under contract to those counties. On Long Island, the arrangement will be somewhat different. That study will be managed by an association of the affected towns and villages. NYMTC staff will serve as the administrative manager of the study and the consultant team will be under contract to NYMTC.

The Hudson Valley studies involve a smaller number of local municipalities; a total of four for the two studies; while the Long Island study will be much broader in scope, covering an area made up of five towns and nine villages. Local municipal participation has been and will continue to be a key element of these studies, given their "bottom-up" approach. In the case of these pilots, participation by local elected and planning officials has been significant and critical to building credibility and participation among residents and businesses.

Next Steps

The hard work of these pilot studies lies ahead: building public and political consensus around future land use and transportation visions across municipal boundaries. Although the study teams remain hopeful, prospects for success are unknown at this stage. These studies include a significant risk factor since achieving consensus is by no means guaranteed.

Should consensus be achieved, a further step will include providing an institutional framework for the desired futures through local and regional agreements on development and transportation improvements.

Author and Copyright Information

Copyright 2001 by Author

Gerry Bogacz is the Planning Group Director for the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council. He can be reached for further information at (212) 938-3443 or by e-mail at gbogacz@gw.dot.state.ny.us.