Jim Humphrey with the City of Charlotte attended the February NC Board of Transportation Meeting and summarized the higlights below:
Certain portions of the meeting were spent educating new members. Highlights include:
NCDOT Project Delivery Process and Interagency Leadership Team- Debbie Barbour (NCDOT) and John Sullivan (FHWA) presented info to Planning and Environment Committee. The project delivery process included the merger process which has improved project delivery timelines by lessening the chance of serious disagreements with permitting agencies late in the process. The Interagency Leadership Team includes high level staff of NCDOT and partner agencies. It’s goals include 1-Develop shared GIS, 2-Partner to integrate local land use plans, long range transportation plans, environmental and ED planning to meet mobility, environment and economic goals and, 3-Improve the project delivery process. A trial GIS project is underway which is expected to demonstrate benefits.
Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation (PART)- Brent McKinney (PART) gave a presentation of services and needs of his agency. He did an excellent job explaining the business/economic case for transit services which was well received by the Multimodal Committee. During discussion, some members of the committee stated an earlier commitment made during consideration of the State Transportation Plan to increase transit funding from 1.8% of the state transportation budget to 12% and that this had not happened.
I-440 Fencing- Kevin Lacy and Cliff Brown (NCDOT) discussed analysis and corrective action that took place after a good Samaritan jumped over a bridge fence to his death. The presentation was to the Safety and Emerging Issues Committee.
Randolph County Rest Area and Visitor’s Center- A presentation was made highlighting the safety benefits of rest areas, “green features” of this particular center and the public/private finance/operation of the visitor’s center.
Reform Efforts Related to BOT- Jim Trogden (NCDOT) presented info regarding concurrent efforts within NCDOT to reform the role and operation of the Board of Transportation, These include what he called the three “P’s”-Policy, Planning and Performance. Policy initiatives included ethics, finance and mobility, audit, land use and environment, intergovernmental and professional development. Planning included revision of the 25 year plan, development of the 5 and 10 year transportation plans, innovation and performance of the statewide system of transportation. Performance included monitoring of financial status and more work by the board in making policy decisions to improve project delivery as opposed to making project decisions. Jim indicated that staff and the board are looking at other ways to improve interaction such as changing meeting frequency, establishing more or different board work groups and having occasional meeting outside Raleigh.
Ethics- Fleming Bell (UNC School of Government) presented info on “Ethics Laws that Every Government Officer, Employee and Contractor Should Know”.
Financial Overview- Mark Foster (NCDOT) gave a “Finance 101” presentation indicating where DOT revenues come from and how they are spent. He indicated they do not expect revenues to return to the 2007 level (a peak year) until 2014 or later.
