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Written by

Chris Rall

Published on

October 31, 2016

Leaders and advocates in the state of Oregon and in the Portland metropolitan region have been discussing how to use performance measures to inform smarter investment decisions and build public trust in how transportation dollars are spent. As the Portland-based representative for Transportation for America, I’ve been deeply engaged in these discussions, including serving on a work group for Metro, Portland’s metropolitan planning organization, providing guidance on performance measures in the next long range transportation plan, and working with state leaders on legislation to integrate performance-based decision making into the Oregon DOT’s programs.

This is the first of a series of posts on the issues and challenges of performance-based planning in the Portland region.

Many staffers working on Metro’s long-range transportation plan — referred to locally as the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) — had the opportunity to attend a two-day symposium at Portland State University focused largely on performance-based project prioritization. Robert Liberty, director of the Urban Sustainability Accelerator at Portland State University, organized the symposium entitled New Thinking for a New Era: A Symposium on Transportation Investment Decision-making. Attendees included staff from MPOs around the country and experts at the cutting edge of performance-based planning.

Participating with T4A director James Corless and SGA senior policy advisor Lynn Peterson, we heard about a range of new policy developments and technical tools from:

  • Chris Ganson, California Governor Edmund G. Brown’s office, on the implementation of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) as a primary measure of environmental impact (instead of level of service (LOS)).
  • Eric Sundquist, Managing Director of State Smart Transportation Initiative (SSTI), on accessibility performance measures and the Sugar Access tool developed by Citilabs, and the implementation of Virginia DOT’s ‘Smart Scale’ project prioritization.
  • Sam Seskin, recently retired from CH2M HILL, on the development of Oregon’s MOSAIC
  • Steve Heminger, Executive Director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (the MPO for the San Francisco Bay Area) on their approach to performance-based project prioritization.

Of particular interest were the lessons learned on the politics of integrating performance-based project prioritization into the MPO planning process. A recurring theme was the need to give decision-makers the space and time to get comfortable with a new approach. It can be a challenge to sell elected officials or skeptical board members on a performance-based project prioritization that allows a process imbued with the region’s values to elevate the best projects — rather than a process where the most influential or persuasive voice gets their project funded.

There were a few recommendations for putting elected officials at ease in the early stages of developing a prioritization process:

  • Develop a prioritization system in a way that does not initially put projects at risk of being removed from funding consideration. Local projects are precious to local officials, and they will initially do everything to protect them — even at the expense of the long-term regional gains and smarter investments.
  • Limit the array of projects that will be subject to prioritization. For example, if a project is close to construction, consider it a done deal. Expend effort on analyzing more expensive projects rather than cheaper ones, and focus on capacity expansion projects as opposed to maintenance and operations.
  • Consider if projects need numerical rankings. MTC categorizes projects as high priority, medium and underperforming and uses those categorizations to inform subsequent decision-making.

While these are all ideas to consider, it became clear at the symposium that local context matters. In the Puget Sound region, Councilmember Balducci shared the story of opposition to a specific proposed road through pristine land that helped initiate Puget Sound Regional Council’s (PSRC) project prioritization process. In addition, PSRC developed its process in a time of plentiful funding, and so it was ready to apply when scarcity arose and the MPO needed to cut projects from its constrained list.

MTC has gone through an iterative process that has added rigor over the course of 15 years. At a time when there was controversy over some particular measures, support for the overall approach was strong, and so they continue to expand the program. Originally applied only to projects that expand the system, they have begun evaluating state-of-good-repair projects for prioritization as well.

As Metro considers using performance-based prioritization in its investment decisions, these stories could help inform how to bring skeptical decision-makers on board. It’s challenging for local leaders to switch from the political wrangling they’re accustomed to, to a rational approach that elevates the best projects based on their merits. However, when they emerge on the other side with smarter investment decisions, the ability to communicate decisions more transparently, and as a result, greater public trust and greater ability to raise more transportation revenue, there is no compelling reason to go back.

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long range transportation plan performance measures portland