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Bus Rapid Transit Project Sponsor Designation and Corresponding FY 2019 Wake Transit Work Plan Amendment
Bret Martin, MPO Staff
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The TPAC-commissioned core technical team (CTT) for the fixed guideway corridors major investment study (MIS) has completed its high-level, regional-scale evaluation of alignment and station area alternatives for the bus rapid transit (BRT) component of the study. At its October 23rd meeting, the TPAC recommended approval of the final deliverable of the BRT component of the study to the Wake Transit governing boards, a BRT Evaluation Results Memo. The memo details the outputs/results of the MIS BRT Evaluation Framework’s assessment of the four BRT corridors identified in the Wake Transit Plan, as well as individual alignment alternatives within each corridor. The alternatives were evaluated to identify relative strengths and weaknesses against a set of pertinent defined criteria.
The results of the evaluation framework are intended to inform next steps of defining corridor alternatives with independent utility to study further, the selection of a preferred alignment within each of the four corridors, and the order of implementation of the segments that make up the 20 miles of BRT infrastructure identified in the Wake Transit Plan. The next step in the process of moving any defined standalone project corridors toward implementation is to designate a project sponsor to take on the responsibility of further developing viable projects, interfacing with the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) for any federal grants being pursued, and managing engineering, right-of-way acquisition, construction, or any other subsequent phases of project implementation toward an end of effectuating an operating BRT service. In effect, project sponsors absorb an ownership or lead role over certain phases of a project’s execution to ultimately bring the project to fruition.
CAMPO has been assigned as the lead agency responsible for administering the process of designating project sponsors for Wake County Transit Plan projects, and the CAMPO Executive Board has been designated as the appropriate authority for effectuating project sponsor designations for the plan’s fixed guideway projects. At the August 15th Executive Board meeting, based on information provided in a memo from the contracted consultant for the MIS (Attachment A), the Executive Board requested that the City of Raleigh be designated as project sponsor for one or more BRT project corridors (Attachment B). The City Council of the City of Raleigh accepted the request on September 4, 2018 (Attachment C). The aggressive schedule developed for completing project sponsor designations is being driven by the City of Raleigh’s desire to move one or more projects forward to project development and have the ability to meet federal grant application deadlines in early calendar year 2019.
With the invitation from the CAMPO Executive Board for the City of Raleigh to serve as project sponsor, it was understood by the Board that one or more viable standalone BRT project corridors or preliminary locally preferred alternatives with logical termini, independent utility, and regional mobility benefits would need to be pieced together from the four MIS study corridors before a final project sponsor designation can be finalized. The BRT track of the MIS yielded results that suggest each of the study corridors can each stand alone as projects with independent utility, and with the City of Raleigh starting a dialogue with the
FTA on how best to advance the study corridors into project development, the formalization and finalization of the BRT project sponsor designation is ripe to proceed. The City of Raleigh plans to move all four (4) of the study corridors forward into project development, with the exact nature of how they will be pieced together to proceed currently under deliberation by the City and the FTA.
In conjunction with the BRT project sponsor designation request, the City of Raleigh requested a corresponding amendment to the FY 2019 Wake Transit Work Plan for funding to be appropriated to the City to undertake further BRT alternatives refinement and project development activities (Attachment D). The TPAC recommended approval of the requested amendment to the Wake Transit governing boards at its October 10th regular meeting. The amendment would allocate a total of $4,315,545 in funds originally allocated to reserve in both FYs 2018 and 2019 to the City.
Requested Action: Action Consider approval of the following:
1) For the City of Raleigh to be designated as project sponsor for one or more BRT project corridors, or a combination thereof (subject to the guidance of the FTA), that can be derived from and that includes the full extent of the MIS study corridors; and
2) The corresponding FY 2019 Wake Transit Work Plan Amendment to appropriate $4,351,545 in Wake Transit revenues to the City of Raleigh to undertake BRT alternatives refinement and project development.