SOLICITATION NOTICE
A -- The Effect of Smart Growth Policies on Travel Demand
- Notice Date
- 7/27/2010
- Notice Type
- Combined Synopsis/Solicitation
- NAICS
- 541712
— Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Biotechnology)
- Contracting Office
- The National Academies, Transportation Research Board, SHRP2, 500 Fifth Street NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20001, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20001
- Solicitation Number
- SHRP2_C16
- Archive Date
- 10/12/2010
- Point of Contact
- Jo Allen Gause, Phone: 202-334-3826, Linda Mason, Phone: 202-334-3241
- E-Mail Address
-
jagause@nas.edu, lmason@nas.edu
(jagause@nas.edu, lmason@nas.edu)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- SHRP 2 Request for Proposal Focus Area: Capacity Project Number: C16 Project Title: The Effect of Smart Growth Policies on Travel Demand Date Posted: July 27, 2010 Background To address the challenges of moving people and goods efficiently and safely on the nation's highways, Congress has created the second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2). SHRP 2 is a targeted, short-term research program carried out through competitively awarded contracts to qualified researchers in the academic, private, and public sectors. SHRP 2 addresses four strategic focus areas: the role of human behavior in highway safety (Safety); rapid highway renewal (Renewal); congestion reduction through improved travel time reliability (Reliability); and transportation planning that better integrates community, economic, and environmental considerations into new highway capacity (Capacity). Under current legislative provisions, SHRP 2 will receive approximately $170 million with total program duration of seven years. Additional information about SHRP 2 can be found on the program's web site at www.trb.org/shrp2. Capacity Focus Area The Capacity charge from Congress is to develop approaches for systematically integrating environmental, economic, and community requirements into the analysis, planning, and design of new highway capacity. The scope of the SHRP 2 Capacity program extends from the early stages of the transportation planning process, when many potential alternatives are being considered, through project development. When decisions include a major highway component, further development of the highway option is within the scope of the program. When decisions are made that lead to nonhighway options, further development of the nonhighway component is outside the scope. A foundational product of the SHRP 2 Capacity research program is a Decision Guide consisting of 42 key decision points that occur during transportation project activities that are within the scope of this research. This was formerly called the Collaborative Decision Making Framework. The decision points include: •Systems planning •Pre-program studies (e.g., corridor studies) •Programming •Environmental Review •Permitting A decision point is one at which approvals and signoffs are required before the process can advance. ( see Special Note 1 ) The evidence, from case studies conducted under project C01, from the broader literature, and from the personal experience of many professionals, is that successful collaboration with resource agencies, elected officials, and the public is essential to timely completion of capacity-enhancing projects. Failure to collaborate early, successfully, and with commitment is often the root cause of delay, re-work, difficulty in environmental review or permitting, and even legal action. As the Capacity research program evolved, it became clear that the Decision Guide is a framework to which the results of other Capacity research should be linked. To provide the multiple linkages required by this approach, a web-based resource was developed called Transportation for Communities-Advancing Projects through Partnerships (TCAPP). Passages from case studies and other resources are linked to the applicable decision points in the Decision Guide so information can be found. A draft beta test version is located at http://transportationforcommunities.com. The results of C16 will be integrated into the Decision Guide. Project Background Smart growth has been promoted since the 1970s as an alternative to urban sprawl, traffic congestion, disconnected neighborhoods, and urban decay. While there is no single definition of smart growth, this approach to urban planning values long-range regional considerations of sustainability over a short-term focus. Its goals include compact, transit-oriented, bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly land use, including complete streets, mixed-use development, and a range of transportation and housing options. There is no question that smart growth strategies can create desirable urban places and they have been shown to reduce auto trips per day for some households. However, for smart growth to be a component of regional congestion relief, transportation planners need to know what kinds and how much is needed, in which types of urban and suburban environments it can be successful, and the necessary connectivity characteristics to achieve benefits. By and large there is adequate off-peak highway capacity in most cities. However, if the number of auto trips is reduced during off-peak hours it may help air quality and energy consumption, but it does not help the peak period congestion problem. Similarly, a compact mixed-use development in a city that can support a subway or light rail system may have very different trip-reduction characteristics than the same style of development in a smaller city. The question for many metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) and state departments of transportation (DOTs) is how to evaluate the impact of existing or planned smart growth developments on peak period travel demand and then use that information to make better decisions about regional capacity. There is an abundance of literature on the transportation-land use connection and the impact of various smart growth strategies on travel demand, but for practitioners making decisions about transportation infrastructure, this information is often difficult to access and use within the transportation planning system. While there is an established link between transportation and land use planning, there a lack of practical guidance and tools for translating these insights at key decision points in planning and project development. The SHRP 2 Capacity research program is designed to produce a blueprint for an improved collaborative decision-making process for planning new highway capacity in the United States so that capacity can be added in the right places at the right times and with less friction and fewer "re-do" loops. The collaborative decision-making process is built around a series of key decision points; it stresses achieving more holistic decisions as opposed to following links in the traditional planning process. Project C16 will help practitioners understand how smart growth should fit into collaborative decision making about highway capacity. A primary product of Project C16 will be an array of user-friendly, web-based methods, strategies, metrics, and tools to help metropolitan and regional planning organizations, state DOTs, transit agencies, and other stakeholders involved in the transportation planning process quantify the impact of smart growth practices on peak period travel demand and use this information to improve level of service (LOS) ratings, average traffic speeds, travel time, and congestion. It is important that this project take advantage of information and resources that already exist to support the needs of the transportation community in the collaborative decision-making process. Rather than reinvent the wheel in terms of research and analysis, a primary purpose of this project is to "repackage" existing information into new processes and tools for practitioners, and to incorporate them into the transportation decision-making process. This project will also identify gaps in the knowledge base and develop new tools. Objectives The objectives of project C16 are to: (1) Identify where and how smart growth policies and practices should be addressed at key decision points in the transportation planning process to make better decisions about highway capacity requirements; (2) develop analytical tools that transportation planners can use to quantify the short- and long-term impacts of various smart growth scenarios on peak period travel demand; (3) provide practical guidance and resources to help MPOs and state DOTs use information on the reduction of peak period auto use resulting from existing and planned smart growth developments to relieve regional congestion; (4) provide transportation agencies with advice on how to get the right land use decision makers and stakeholders with the right information involved in the transportation planning process at the right time; and (5) tightly integrate tools and information produced for this project into the web-based Transportation for Communities: Advancing Projects through Partnerships (TCAPP) transportation capacity Decision Guide. Tasks Task descriptions are intended to provide a framework for conducting the research. SHRP 2 is seeking the insights of proposers on how best to achieve the research objective. Proposers are expected to describe research plans that can realistically be accomplished within the constraints of available funds and contract time. Proposals must present the proposers' current thinking in sufficient detail to demonstrate their understanding of the issues and the soundness of their approach to meet the research objective(s). 1.Identify the key decision points at which highway capacity planning should consider land use considerations and smart growth policies and practices, and who should be involved in these key decisions. Identify where questions need to be asked with respect to smart growth within the Decision Guide. What do decision makers need to know about smart growth (in terms of information and data) to make informed decisions about additions in regional capacity? Identify how this knowledge will be incorporated into the Decision Guide. 2.Conduct background research to identify examples of strategies and techniques that transportation planning agencies have used to incorporate land use and smart growth standards and practices into the transportation planning process. Present illustrative examples of practices at various scales and for various situations and regions where reduced peak period travel demand was observed or estimated. Examples should include information on design criteria, metrics used, local conditions, outcomes, and collaborations that supported the outcomes. 3.Identify existing metrics that quantify impacts of smart growth practices on peak travel demand, describe how these metrics can be can be made user-friendly for transportation practitioners and decision-makers. Also identify gaps in the existing knowledge base that could be filled with new evaluation tools or new applications of existing tools. Propose a minimum of one tool or application and describe how it will be developed and used. 4.Prepare an interim report that incorporates the results of Tasks 1 through 3. The consultant team will review the interim report with the C16 Expert Task Group before proceeding with following tasks. 5.Develop easy-to-use metrics designed to help transportation practitioners estimate the impact of land use plans and smart growth developments on site-specific and regional peak period travel demand. Provide applicable ranges and values based on local urban form, neighborhood design, and regional accessibility characteristics. Discuss how these metrics may be affected by differences in local climate, scale, transportation infrastructure, demographics, and growth rates. 6.Prepare online resources and tools to help evaluate and quantify outcomes and benefits of smart growth planning and practice in the transportation and project development process. These resources could include a variety of online modules, such as checklists, guidelines on thresholds and metrics, spreadsheets, GIS script files, GIS extensions, web mapping APIs, Google Maps, Bing Maps, simulation and modeling tools, and other resources available in the public domain. Make creative use of technology. 7.Prepare an interim report for Tasks 5 and 6. 8.Make improvements and revisions and develop the final resources and tools. 9.In consultation with the C16 Expert Task Group, work with a minimum of one MPO and one state DOT to demonstrate the validity and applicability of the products produced for this project with real-life pilot tests under different conditions and constraints. Examples of pilot tests might include regional scenario planning, corridor planning, site-specific planning, and other activities on the Decision Guide. Identify how lessons learned from this task will be incorporated into the Decision Guide. 10.Collaborate with SHRP 2 Project C01/C07 contractor team to ensure that the results from Project C16 are incorporated into the Transportation for Communities (TCAPP) web portal: http://transportationforcommunities.com. Work with the C01/C07 contractor team to provide a simple means within TCAPP for practitioners and stakeholders to quickly highlight and hone in on key decision points where smart growth policies and practice should be considered in highway capacity planning. 11.Prepare a research report to document all the tasks from the SHRP 2 C16 project. Deliverables: 1.Task 4 interim report (due three months after contract start) 2.Task 7 interim report 3.Final tools and resources 4.Draft research report 5.Integration of products into the TCAPP web portal 6.Final research report Funds Available: The total project budget is $425,000 Contract Time: Total project time: 13 months total-10 months for research and three months for product review and revision. Responsible Staff: Jo Allen Gause, jagause@nas.edu, 202-334-3826 Authorization to Begin Work: February 2011, expected Proposals (20 single-bound copies) are due not later than 4:30 p.m. on September 27, 2010 This is a firm deadline, and extensions simply are not granted. In order to be considered, all 20 copies of the agency's proposal, accompanied by the executed, unmodified Liability Statement must be in our offices not later than the deadline shown, or they will be rejected. Delivery Address: PROPOSAL-SHRP 2 ATTN: Neil F. Hawks Director, Strategic Highway Research Program 2 Transportation Research Board 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 Phone: 202-334-1430 Liability Statement The signature of an authorized representative of the proposing agency is required on the unaltered statement in order for SHRP 2 to accept the agency's proposal for consideration. Proposals submitted without this executed and unaltered statement by the proposal deadline will be rejected. An executed, unaltered statement indicates the agency's intent and ability to execute a contract that includes the provisions in the statement. Here is a printable version of the Liability Statement (http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/shrp2/LiabilityStatement.pdf). A free copy of the Adobe Acrobat PDF reader is available at http://www.adobe.com. Special Notes Note 1: Transportation for Communities: Advancing Projects through Partnerships (TCAPP) is the product of Project C01. It contains the Decision Guide also developed under Project C01 and provides the Framework to which many SHRP 2 Capacity results will be attached. TCAPP is on the web at http://www.transportationforcommunities.com. More information on the contents of TCAPP may be found at www.TRB.org/SHRP2/Capacity. The project C01 contractor maintains a website that provides background on how the Collaborative Decision-Making Framework was developed: http://sites.google.com/site/shrpc01/. Note 2: Proposers' teams should include professionals with experience in: •Understanding how land use and transportation are linked at federal, state, regional, and local levels. •Applying smart growth principles and evaluating transportation outcomes as they relate to smart growth at various scales. •Direct experience working with DOTs and MPOs on transportation planning and project development decision processes. •Traffic impact studies, regional scenario planning, multimodal corridor planning, GIS expertise, surveys, and both network and demand modeling. •Understanding regulations that guide statewide and metropolitan transportation planning and programming. Note 3: Proposers should be aware that SHRP 2 Projects C10 A and C10 B are developing integrated travel demand models that link activity-based demand to dynamic, time sensitive networks. These model sets will be available on-line by the time the C16 project is active. While the application of modeling techniques is not a specific requirement of the C16 Project, proposers may wish to consider how these models could be used to simulate the effect of smart growth scenarios on peak travel demand and regional congestion. Note 4: SHRP 2 is looking for creative measures to evaluate the impact of smart growth on peak travel demand. Note 5: Proposers should provide their own definition and understanding of smart growth as it relates to regional transportation planning and travel demand. References should be documented. General Notes 1. Proposals will be evaluated by SHRP 2 staff and Expert Task Groups (ETGs) consisting of individuals collectively very knowledgeable in the problem area. Selection of an agency is made by the SHRP 2 Oversight Committee, based on the recommendation from SHRP 2 staff and the ETG. The following factors are considered: (1) the proposer's demonstrated understanding of the problem; (2) the merit of the proposed research approach and experimental design; (3) the experience, qualifications, and objectivity of the research team in the same or closely related problem area; (4) the proposer's plan for participation by disadvantaged business enterprises-small firms owned and controlled by minorities or women; and (5) the adequacy of facilities. TRB and the SHRP 2 Oversight Committee strongly encourage the significant participation of Disadvantaged Business Enterprises in SHRP 2 research contracts. Although no quota is specified nor is DBE participation mandated, the proposer's plan for involvement of DBEs is a factor in selection of the research contractor, and the contractor's adherence to its DBE plan will be monitored during the contract period. The "Research Team Builder" section of the SHRP 2 web site (http://www.trb.org/StrategicHighwayResearchProgram2SHRP2/Public/Pages/Research_Team_Builder_177.aspx) is a resource for proposers interested in participating on research teams. 2. Any clarifications regarding this RFP will be posted on the SHRP 2 Web site (www.TBR.org/SHRP2). Announcements of such clarifications will be posted on the front page and, when possible, will be noted in the TRB e-newsletter. Proposers are advised to check the Web site frequently until August 27, 2010, after which no further comments will be posted. 3. According to the provisions of Title 49, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 21, which relates to nondiscrimination in federally assisted programs, all parties are hereby notified that the contract entered into pursuant to this announcement will be awarded without discrimination on the grounds of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or disability. 4. The essential features required in a proposal for research are detailed in the Manual for Conducting Research and Preparing Proposals for SHRP 2 (http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/shrp2/PreparingSHRP2Reports.pdf). Proposals must be prepared according to this document, and attention is directed specifically to Section IV for mandatory requirements. Proposals that do not conform to these requirements will be rejected. 5. The total funds available are made known in the project statement and line items of the budget are examined to determine the reasonableness of the allocation of funds to the various tasks. If the proposed total cost exceeds the funds available, the proposal is rejected. 6. All proposals become the property of the Transportation Research Board. Final disposition will be made according to the policies thereof, including the right to reject all proposals. IMPORTANT NOTICE Potential proposers should understand that the research project described herein is tentative. The final content of the program depends on the level of funding made available. Nevertheless, to be prepared to execute research contracts as soon as possible after sponsors' approvals, the Strategic Highway Research Program is assuming that the tentative program will become official in its entirety and is proceeding with requests for proposals and selections of research agencies.
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