Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates

In August 2005, President Bush signed into law the Safe, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, commonly referred to as SAFETEA-LU. This legislation authorized the provision of $286.4 billion in guaranteed funding for federal surface transportation programs over six years through Fiscal year 2009, including $52.6 billion for federal transit programs.
Starting in Fiscal Year 2007, projects funded through three programs included in SAFETEA-LU, including the Job Access and Reverse Commute Program (JARC, Section 5316), New Freedom (Section 5317) and the Formula Program for Elderly Individuals and Individuals with Disabilities (Section 5310) are required to be derived from a locally developed, coordinated public transit and human services transportation plan. SAFETEA-LU guidance issued by the Federal Transportation Administration (FTA) in May 2007 indicates that the plan should be a “unified, comprehensive strategy for public transportation service delivery that identifies the transportation needs of individuals with disabilities, older adults, and individuals with limited income, laying out strategies for meeting these needs, and prioritizing services.”
Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates has been working with numerous public agencies and their local stakeholders throughout the Pacific Northwest, California, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Idaho, and elsewhere around the country to fulfill these new planning requirements.
While each community is unique, the plans have resulted in some common elements:

Stakeholder Consultation: The coordinated planning process provides an opportunity for transportation providers, funders, and planners to collaborate with their human service agency counterparts, advocacy organizations and others involved in improving mobility for older adults, persons with disabilities, and low-income persons. In many cases, these stakeholder groups will continue to work together to recommend projects funded with federal transportation dollars, or to otherwise implement recommendations emerging from the plans.

Public Outreach: Outreach can be conducted in a number of ways, including focus groups, workshops, presentations at other community meetings, one-on-one interviews, surveys, and opportunities to comment on-line. Nelson\Nygaard staff is skilled and experienced in carrying out public outreach techniques that are tailored for each community-based plan. Often, utilizing a combination of outreach techniques is most effective.

Demographic Profile: The plans provide a “snapshot” of community characteristics derived from U.S. Census Data, such as levels of poverty, numbers of households without automobiles, or numbers of older adults and persons with disabilities. This data provides an important baseline of demographic information to inform the planning results.

Maps: Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology, demographic information can be mapped to illustrate community and transportation characteristics. For example, maps can be prepared to show the location of key activity centers serving persons with disabilities, older adults and those of low-income status, and how well they are served by existing public transit routes.
Needs Assessment: Each plan documents key unmet transportation needs faced by the three communities of concern: older adults, persons with disabilities, and individuals of low-income status. These unmet needs are derived from input received from stakeholders, as well as other needs assessments or documentation that may have been prepared by other organizations.

Strategies and Solutions: In addition to identifying gaps, project stakeholders have sought to describe strategies and solutions that could mitigate the gaps. Many strategies can be considered potential projects eligible for SAFETEA-LU funding and may cover a wide range of transportation alternatives including shuttles, expanded fixed-route transit, vanpools, or taxi voucher programs.

Beyond SAFETEA-LU
Many communities are using the planning exercise as an opportunity to look at broader coordination issues—how can transportation providers do a better job delivering services with existing resources? What steps can be taken to better coordinate services in order to improve efficiencies? How can human service and transportation agencies continue their collaboration to improve public transportation services for those with limited mobility options?

Mobility management has emerged as a concept of interest through many of the local planning efforts. To encourage greater coordination of public and client transportation services, mobility management was specifically identified as a strategy in the new SAFETEA-LU legislation. Federal guidance describes mobility management as “projects for improving coordination among public transportation and other transportation service providers,” and could include, among other things, the employment of personnel to coordinate the full array of transportation options through a clearinghouse function.

Provisions were included that allow mobility management activities to be funded as federal capital expenses, thereby eligible to be supported with 80% federal public transportation funding rather than 50% allowed to support transit operations. This enhanced federal share for mobility management projects applies to the following FTA transit programs:

• 5307 – Public transit assistance to urbanized areas
• 5310 – Assistance to elderly and disabled populations
• 5311 – Public transit assistance to rural areas
• 5316 – Job Access and Reverse Commute (JARC)
• 5317 – New Freedom (supplemental assistance to disabled)

In general, mobility management supports a more flexible and holistic approach in providing public transportation – one that focuses on the needs of individuals, their neighborhoods and communities. This shift means moving beyond establishing and operating traditional fixed-route transit services to tailoring a network of diverse transportation services to satisfy customer needs at a local and regional level. The concept involves designing and managing a comprehensive and coordinated family of services and providers to enhance mobility and connectivity.

Initially, SAFETEA-LU plans have been prepared in order to access federal sources of funds to support transportation for the elderly, persons of disabilities and those of low-income status. In the long run, they also have set the stage for enhanced collaboration between transportation providers and their human service agency counterparts by initiating dialogue and identifying strategies for enhancing the ways services are delivered at the local level.

Below are links to examples of SAFETEA-LU plans completed by Nelson\Nygaard: