Minutes of the
Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization

TECHNICAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Monday, July 21, 2003, 2:00 p.m.
Department of Transportation Fifth Floor Conference Room
869 Punchbowl Street, Honolulu, Hawaii

Member(s) Absent: Steve Wong (FAA)

Staff Present: Gordon Lum, Lori Arakaki, Laureen Brennan, Michelle Kurisu, and Pamela Toyooka

The meeting was called to order at 2:05 p.m. by Chair Glenn Yasui. A quorum was present.

I.    ELECTION OF OFFICERS

Ray Sakai nominated Paul Steffens for the position of Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) Chair. Robert Miyasaki seconded the nomination. There were no other nominations. Mr. Steffens was elected Chair.

Richard Poirier nominated Glenn Yasui for the position of Technical Advisory Committee Vice Chair. Glenn Ifuku seconded the nomination. There were no other nominations. Mr. Yasui was elected ViceChair.

Mr. Steffens assumed the position of Chair.

II.    MINUTES OF THE May 23, 2003 MEETING

Mr. Miyasaki moved and Mr. Ifuku seconded that the minutes of the May 23, 2003 meeting be approved as circulated. The minutes were unanimously approved.

III.    AMENDMENT #7 OF THE OAHU TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM (TIP) FYs 2002-2004

TIP Project Manager, Lori Arakaki, said that there was a proposal to amend the Oahu TIP FYs 2002-2004 by adding four new projects. Three of these projects would be funded with Public Lands Highway Discretionary Program funds appropriated by Congress specifically for these projects, and one would be funded with Federal Transit Administration (FTA) funds.

Mr. Poirier moved and Randolph Hara seconded that the TAC recommend that the Policy Committee endorse the Oahu TIP FYs 2002-2004 Amendment #7. The motion passed unanimously.

IV.     OAHU TIP FYs 2004-2006
Handout(s):
•    TIP FYs 2004-2006 Project Evaluation for Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)-Funded Projects (State of Hawaii projects only)
•    Project Evaluation Criteria for Roadway Projects in the TIP
•    Draft Project List (July 15, 2003) – Not financially constrained
•    Draft TIP document

Ms. Arakaki said that the TIP was a three-year programming document that lists transportation projects that will be undertaken by the State of Hawaii and the City and County of Honolulu. In general, projects on this list are funded in part with federal money. The TIP is reviewed annually, updated every two years, and amended when needed.

Draft TIP Listing
Ms. Arakaki reported that the draft TIP included a list of project requests from the State of Hawaii and the City and County of Honolulu. The FHWA-funded portion of this draft is currently financially unconstrained. The Policy Committee will be asked to decide which projects to fund in each fiscal year, resulting in a financially constrained listing. She pointed out that the difference between the project list that was mailed to TAC and the list handed out at the meeting was that Project S82 (Farrington Highway, Maipalaoa Bridge) was added to the list.

Project Evaluations
Each State of Hawaii project on the draft TIP listing was evaluated using the project evaluation criteria that TAC developed. The criteria definitions were also handed out.

Administrative Procedures
In addition, Ms. Arakaki said that there were changes being proposed to streamline the TIP process:

• Add an administrative action to Chapter V, Section A, Pre-Approval of Certain Administrative Actions (item A.6) to allow for the addition of a project into the TIP if Congress has appropriated it and its funds can be used for only that project. A list of projects that are earmarked by Congress, such as those funded with Title 23 Public Lands Highways Discretionary funds, would be provided to the Policy Committee upon request, but at least annually for informational purposes.
  
• Add Project S77, Title 23 Public Lands Highways Discretionary Projects – Various Locations.

She pointed out that the Executive Committee has expressed some reservations about making this change. They felt that the Policy Committee should maintain some control over whether or not a project should be in the TIP.

Jonathan Young noted that any project on Oahu that uses federal funds should be programmed in the TIP. If the project is listed in the Statewide section of the Statewide TIP (STIP), but is not on the TIP, the TIP would need to be amended to add the project once the amount for Oahu is known.

After discussing the changes, Mr. Poirier moved and Toru Hamayasu seconded that TAC recommend approval of the draft Oahu TIP FYs 2004-2006 without the changes to the administration of the TIP.

Mr. Lum pointed out that the present draft TIP was unconstrained and that funds would probably not be available to fund all of the projects listed. The Policy Committee would have to constrain the list and it might be better for TAC to make a recommendation regarding which projects should be deleted from the list. He also pointed out that there were two projects (S35 Kalanianaole Highway Bikeway and S41 Kamehameha Highway Bikeway) that were being funded with Enhancement Funds that had not gone through the Transportation Enhancement Process.

Mr. Lum asked Mr. Young what the Federal position was regarding funding projects with enhancement funds that had not gone through the enhancement process. Mr. Young said that, when FHWA receives the STIP for approval, they assume that it has gone through the OMPO process. TAC could recommend that the Policy Committee reject those projects, or ask that OMPO regroup the Transportation Enhancement panel to prioritize those projects. If the Policy Committee endorses the TIP that includes projects funded with enhancement funds that were not part of the enhancement process, then they have consciously added those projects to the enhancement list and have prioritized them before others on the list.

Mr. Hamayasu withdrew his second to the motion. The motion died for lack of a second.

Ron Tsuzuki, State Department of Transportation (DOT) Head Planning Engineer, explained that, presently, the projects on the list would consume most of the flexible federal funds anticipated for Hawaii for the next three years. This would not allow the State to do very many projects on the other islands. It would be necessary to delete some of the projects from this list. He suggested that the DOT and City Department of Transportation Services (DTS) meet and discuss which projects could be deleted from the list.

The Chair recessed the meeting at 3:15 p.m., to be continued subject to the call of the Chair. The members will be notified when the continuation of this meeting has been scheduled.

Meeting Continuation
August 8, 2003, 2:30 p.m.
Department of Transportation Fifth Floor Conference Room
869 Punchbowl Street, Honolulu, Hawaii

Member(s) Absent: Steve Wong (FAA)

Staff Present: Shevaun Low, Lori Arakaki, Laureen Brennan, and Pamela Toyooka

The meeting was reconvened at 2:37 p.m. by Chair Paul Steffens. A quorum was present.

IV.    OAHU TIP FYs 2004-2006
Handouts:
•    Title VI/Environmental Justice Analysis Matrix
•    FY 2004-2006 TIP Project Evaluation for Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)-Funded Projects
•    Project Evaluation Criteria for Roadway Projects in the TIP
•    Draft Project List (8/7/2003)
•    PowerPoint Presentation Slides

Environmental Justice Analysis
Shevaun Low gave a presentation to the committee on the Title VI & Environmental Justice (T6/EJ) analysis done on the unconstrained FYs 2004-2006 TIP. She said that the goal of the analysis was to say that the average transportation investment in the T6/EJ and non-T6/EJ block groups was comparable.

The analysis did not include the projects added by the City Council during the week (C21 and C22) or those projects that could not be mapped (S75, S77, S80, C1, C2, C11, C16, and C17). The analysis looked at three performance measures (policy, equity, and safety) that had been established and approved by the Policy Committee two years ago during the development of the Environmental Justice in the OMPO Planning Process report.

Population Policy
Regarding the population policy performance measure, Mr. Hara said that growth was being directed to Central Oahu along with the primary urban corridor (PUC) and Ewa. He suggested that Central Oahu be included in the list of areas where growth is being directed.

Equity
Ms. Low said that the analysis showed that the average expenditure for the T6/EJ block groups was almost twice as much as the average expenditure in Non-T6/EJ block groups for the equity performance measure.

When further analysis was done, it showed that most of the money being spent in T6/EJ block groups was for projects funded with Bridge On-System funds and Interstate Maintenance. Projects funded with National Highway System (NHS), Surface Transportation Program (STP), and Minimum Guarantee funds were evenly distributed between T6/EJ and non-T6/EJ block groups.

Bridge projects funded with Bridge On-System funds are selected using the DOT bridge replacement process. The Interstate Maintenance funds can only be used for projects on the interstate highways. Only 5% of the T6/EJ block groups have an interstate highway traversing through them.

Safety
Ms. Low said that, with regard to safety, the findings were similar to that of equity. The dollars spent for safety projects in combination with a crash rate of greater than 1.0 were included as part of the evaluation. Mr. Hamayasu suggested that the evaluation of safety focus on crash rate because the dollars spent for safety projects could be significantly different with similar improvements in safety depending on the safety issue being addressed. Chair Steffens agreed with Mr. Hamayasu and stated that the safety performance measure should evaluate TIP projects based on crash rate only. Ms. Low agreed to redo the analysis to consider crash rate only.

TAC Recommendation to Policy Committee
Ms. Low asked whether TAC agreed with these explanations, if they should be included in the presentation to the Policy Committee, and what the TAC recommendation was regarding the conclusions of the analysis.

Vice Chair Yasui stated that it was inappropriate to show the Policy Committee the results of the T6/EJ analysis because it was based on the unconstrained TIP. Ms. Low responded that part of the OMPO process, when an inequitable distribution of benefits and costs are found, is to bring the findings to the Policy Committee’s attention. Because TAC advises the Policy Committee, TAC is asked first to make a recommendation to the Policy Committee. Mr. Hamayasu agreed with Vice Chair Yasui and added that, while TAC has some concerns, the methodology should be followed.

When asked if a T6/EJ analysis is required before constraining the TIP, Mr. Young said that the Federal requirement is to consider the impacts of the projects on T6/EJ areas. The Federal requirement does not say anything about when in the development of the TIP the analysis should be conducted. Mr. Young said that a T6/EJ analysis on an unconstrained TIP is not that meaningful. He noted that OMPO has indicated that a T6/EJ analysis will be done on the constrained TIP. He stated that the results of the constrained TIP T6/EJ analysis should be presented to the Policy Committee and that their reacting to the results of the unconstrained TIP would be premature. Ms. Arakaki stated that presenting the results of the T6/EJ analysis to the Policy Committee after the TIP has been constrained would mean that another Policy Committee meeting would need to be held to discuss T6/EJ analysis for the first time; this would elongate the process.

Julia Tsumoto suggested comparing the needs determined in the development of the Oahu Regional Transportation Plan (ORTP) as a baseline to the projects in the TIP. This would be used to determine the projects in EJ and non-EJ block groups in the TIP and to designate which projects should be funded. Ms. Low responded that only a small percentage of TIP projects are included in the ORTP; bridge and maintenance projects, for example, are not specified in the ORTP, yet comprise a significant portion of the TIP.

After considerable discussion, the TAC agreed that OMPO should give an abbreviated presentation of this analysis to the Policy Committee that highlighted the findings for each of the performance measures:

• Population Policy: TIP expenditures consistent with population growth described in the General Plan;
  
• Safety: TIP projects appear to correct for higher risk in both T6/EJ and non-T6/EJ block groups (should the subsequent analysis based only on crash rate prove this); and
  
• Equity: T6/EJ block groups receive about twice the amount of TIP expenditures than non-T6/EJ block groups.

Ms. Arakaki said that the present draft list of projects for the TIP FYs 2004-2006 is financially unconstrained. It includes changes made by the City Council at their August 6, 2003 meeting. The project evaluation sheets were updated to include the new projects.

Ms. Arakaki asked TAC if they wanted to make a recommendation to the Policy Committee as to which projects should be in the TIP. Vice Chair Yasui said that DOT and DTS had met to discuss the project list. They could not come to an agreement as to how to constrain the TIP. DOT would be prioritizing their projects for the meeting.

Vice Chair Yasui moved that the unconstrained list of projects be given to the Policy Committee. Mr. Hara seconded the motion and asked that it be amended to say that DOT and DTS would have prioritized lists of projects available at the meeting. The motion passed unanimously.

Pamela Toyooka asked the agencies to bring 50 copies of any materials that would be circulated at the meeting.

There being no other business, the meeting was adjourned at 4:10 p.m.