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In recent years, the Indiana Department of Transportation (DOT) and other state transportation agencies have increasingly implemented non-capacity expansion projects or strategies due to their benefits in improving flow, safety, and reducing delay in the transportation network at low capital, operations, and maintenance cost. The quantification of the benefits of these strategies has also become very important due to increasingly challenging local and regional fiscal conditions. With this in mind, this project developed a framework and a tool for the evaluation of economic development impacts of corridor improvements at the sketch-level of planning. The resulting framework and tool, called "Tool for Operations - Economic Impact Analysis" (TOPS-EIA), is based on a framework and tool from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) called Tool for Operations Benefit Cost Analysis (TOPS-BC). TOPS-EIA takes the expected impacts of each strategy on corridor performance and translates them into business cost savings and economic development impacts through a set of statewide economic multipliers. TOPS-EIA is subdivided into 4 modules: arterial signal coordination (ASC) strategies, traffic incident management (TIM) strategies, work zone management (WZM) strategies, and access management (AM) strategies. Additionally, a qualitative tool for road diet (RD) strategies was developed. To demonstrate TOPS-EIA, two case studies of ASC strategies were conducted. The results showed that this type of strategies could provide not only significant user cost savings, but also economic development impacts, expressed as gross regional product, job-years, and real personal income. The proposed methodology and tool can assist DOTs, Metropolitan and Rural Planning Organizations (MPOs and RPOs) in assessing the benefits of non-capacity expansion projects at the early and middle stage planning processes and, therefore, contribute to better-informed decisions.
This synthesis report will be of interest to DOT administrators, supervisors, and staff, as well as to the consultants working with them in assessing the economic development impacts of existing or proposed transportation investments. Metropolitan Planning Organization regional and local staffs might also find it informative. It is intended to help practicing planners become aware of the range of methods and analysis techniques available, organized by the different categories of agency needs, to address different types of planning, policy, and research needs. This synthesis summarizes the current state of the practice by means of a survey of transportation planning agencies in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. This report provides reviews of the analysis methods used in recent project and program evaluation reports of these agencies, in addition to a bibliography of economic literature and guides.
A two-lane to four-lane roadway improvement can spur new development adjacent to the improved corridor, as well as beyond. In Missouri, two-lane to four-lane improvements frequently result in increased economic development on the local and regional levels. Increased economic efficiencies also result through reduced transportation costs.
"Strengthening the economic vitality of a region (jobs and income) is one of the primary reasons for investing in highway capacity. Elements of improving economic vitality include better access to markets and labor force, reduced cost of delay, reduced congestion, improved safety, reduced pollution, and a better quality of life. However, the ways in which new and improved highway capacity influences economic vitality are complex and often indirect. This project had three objectives: (1) to provide a resource to help determine the net changes in the economic systems of an area impacted by a transportation capacity investment; (2) to provide data and results from enough structured cases that project planners in the future can use the cases to demonstrate by analogy the likely impacts of a proposed project or group of projects (plan); and (3) to demonstrate how this fits into collaborative decision making for capacity expansion."--proj. desc. This project produced 100 case studies of already-built highway capacity projects and their economic development impacts. To accomplish this, the study team compiled pre/post economic and land development data and conducted local interviews, in order to portray the actual, observed economic development impacts of those projects. The results were put into a database and classified by type of project and local setting. An accompanying web tool, called T-PICS (Transportation Project Impact Case Studies), was developed to provide access to the case study information so it can be used to portray the range of economic development impacts occurring as a result of different types of projects in different settings.
This study examines the feasibility of making a major financial investment in the improvement of U.S. 20 between Sioux City and Fort Dodge, Iowa. This 119-mile (191-km) highway segment of U.S. 20 currently includes 97 miles (156 km) of 2-lane highway and 22 miles (35 km) of 4-lane highway (on the west end near Sioux City and a short section near Holstein). This 119-mile (191-km) segment is predominantly rural in nature, and serves a region of Iowa that has not been economically prospering. Local business leaders and residents have long desired major improvements to this highway segment, not only because of the safety and travel efficiency implications, but also because of the belief that the highway, as mainly a two-lane facility, is retarding the corridor area's economic growth and well being. The study was divided into five sequential tasks: (A) Evaluation of Existing U.S. 20; (B) Improvement Alternatives, Costs and Traffic; (C) Screening of Alternative Candidate Improvements; (D) Economic Feasibility Analysis; and (E) Interpretation and Comparisons.