DATE:            May 18, 2017

TO:                 Draft Memorandum to File

FROM:           Ryan Hicks and Julian Chen, Central Transportation Planning Staff

RE:                 Congestion Management Process Committee of the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization—Meeting Minutes

May 18, 2017 Meeting

9:00 AM-9:50 AM, State Transportation Building, Conference Rooms 2 and 3, 10 Park Plaza, Boston, MA

Chairperson

Jay Monty

Decisions

Follow-up tasks are cited on page three.

Meeting Agenda

Introductions

All present introduced themselves. (See the attendance list on the last page.)

Approval of August 18, 2016, CMP Committee Meeting Minutes

The minutes of the prior meeting were approved.

Intersection Improvement Program Update

The Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) commenced an intersection improvement program in the 2014 federal fiscal year. The main objective of this program was to implement low-cost improvements for both safety and congestion issues at selected intersections in the Boston region. This program was funded by the Congestion Management Process (CMP).

The first step of this program for Boston Region MPO was to collaborate with Howard Stein Hudson (HSH) to pre-select some intersections around the region. Once the intersections were selected, HSH went to the intersections to document any problems with the intersection signal timings. In addition, they looked for other capital improvements such as geometric improvements, striping, and signage. Then the MPO contacted municipalities to see if they were interested in implementing the recommended improvements themselves. (The MPO does not implement any improvements other than signal retimings.) Overall, 16 communities around Boston participated in this program, and HSH evaluated more than 44 intersections for this program. The intersection improvement program concluded in December 2016. For each intersection, HSH conducted a detailed Synchro analysis that showed the potential impacts of the proposed improvements.

Mark Abbott mentioned that the signal timings at some of these intersections have not been changed in a long time. A lot of communities did not have resources to look over signal timing changes or fund consultants to do this. The role of the Boston Region MPO is to oversee the possible intersection locations; MassDOT managed the contracts with the consultants. The consultants contacted communities to see if they were interested in participating in the program. If they agreed to participate, a letter between MassDOT, HSH, and the participating community was signed, which would grant HSH permission to survey the intersections.

Update on CMP Work

MBTA Park-and-Ride Lot/Bicycle Parking Inventory

Every few years, Boston MPO surveys each MBTA station for vehicle parking capacity and parking use. The bicycle parking and use was also counted. After the data were collected, Boston MPO conducted a detailed analysis and wrote a memorandum to summarize any findings. This data collection effort is supposed to last from April 2017 through the fall of 2018. The plan is to count rapid transit stations in spring 2017 and 2018 and commuter rail in fall 2017 and 2018.

MBTA Bus Monitoring Study

The Traffic Analysis and Design (TAD) group collaborated with the Transit Analysis and Planning group to determine new performance measures used for the CMP that monitor the MBTA bus system. A dataset featuring bus timepoint data was provided by the MBTA. The data were analyzed and new performance measures, such as transit time index, were calculated. This project is expected to be finished by September 2016.

2015 INRIX Dataset

An INRIX dataset, which includes 2015 travel time data for many roadways across the Boston region, was recently purchased. The Boston MPO had been working on updating the 2015 data and analyzing the changing of congestion from 2012 to 2015. Ryan Hicks mentioned different performance measures, such as congested time, which shows how long the roadway is congested during a peak period.

Other Business

None

Follow-Up Tasks

• CMP staff should follow up with participating communities in the future to see if they are implementing future improvements.
• CMP staff should continue to collect MBTA Park-and-Ride Lot/Bicycle Parking Inventory data.
• CMP staff should work to finish the MBTA Bus Monitoring Study.
• CMP staff should continue to analyze 2015 INRIX dataset and calculate new performance measures.

Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 9:50 AM.

Attendance