Corridor Studies

CROSS-COUNTY CORRIDOR - MTIA
(Continued)

6.0 EVALUATION OF PHASE II STRATEGIES

The evaluation of the ten Phase II Strategy Sets has followed the general guidance of the U.S. Department of Transportation's (USDOT) Major Investment Study guidelines. These USDOT guidelines view each of the alternative strategies from four perspectives - effectiveness, financial feasibility, cost-effectiveness, and equity. At the same time, it has been a major focus of this study to continually evaluate the alternatives in light of the locally identified problems within the Cross-County Corridor. Thus, each strategy has been rated by how well it addresses the problems identified earlier in the study, and by how well it deals with the related issues identified by the public.

Based on the problem identification process of Phase I of the study, a set of eleven categories were established for evaluation of the strategy sets. These categories are:

Community and Regional Viability
 Traffic Congestion
 Accessibility
 Mobility
 Neighborhood Concerns
 Noise and Air Quality
 Natural Environment
 Safety Security
 Financial Feasibility
 Cost-Effectiveness
 Equity

 Within these eleven evaluation categories, a total of 50 individual measures were established to rate each of the strategy sets. These individual measures are contained in the comparative matrices presented in Section 9 of Technical Memorandum No. 6,Evaluation and Comparison of Alternatives. (A complete listing of all of the Technical Memoranda prepared as a part of the Phase 2 analysis is contained in Appendix A at the rear of this report.) The following paragraphs describe the general process and methodology for computation of these individual measures.

6.1 TRAVEL FORECASTING

 Travel demand forecasts for this study have been developed using the regional transportation model sets of the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council. These models follow the standard four-step urban transportation planning process of trip generation, trip distribution, modal choice, and route assignment. The modeling process is similar to that used in most other major metropolitan areas for urban transportation planning. This same basic model has previously been used for the St. Louis Transit Systems Analysis (1987-91), the St. Clair County AA/DEIS (1991-94), the St. Charles County AA/DEIS (1994-95), and the St. Clair County FEIS (1996), thereby providing relative consistency in the approach to transportation demand forecasting.

6.1.1 EWGCC Model

 The particular software used for the demand modeling process is MINUTP, Version 96A, which was introduced in 1996. The highway portion of the EWGCC model was last validated in November, 1992, with supplemental changes occurring as recently as October, 1994. The most recent changes expanded the highway network to a total of 1,066 zones, and the model now includes all of the St. Louis region, including the city of St. Louis and St. Louis County, St. Charles, Franklin, and Jefferson counties in Missouri, and St. Clair, Madison, and Monroe counties in Illinois. The No-Build highway network for the year 2015 assumed that the following major Missouri highway projects would be completed: Page Avenue Extension limited access facility from I-270 to Route N in St. Charles County; Route 370 Extension limited access facility from I-270 to I-70 in St. Charles County; and Route 141 limited access facility from I-64 to Route 30.

 As part of the modeling effort for this study, a considerable amount of additional detail was added to the highway network, particularly for the freeway interchanges within the study area, to support a more detailed investigation of the effects of improvements to these interchanges.

 The transit model was last updated in January, 1995, for the St. Charles County AA/DEIS. The current study has included coding and validation of a new transit network to provide a node structure that is consistent with the current highway network. The transit network for the No-Build scenario assumes that only those major capital projects already committed will be built, and thus includes only the St. Clair County extension of MetroLink. No other MetroLink extensions (including St. Charles) are presumed to be part of the No-Build scenario, nor are any of the Commuter Rail projects under study by the Bi-State Development Agency included.

 Several refinements to the model's trip generation module have been proposed by this study to improve the accuracy of the model. The refinements include adding special trip generation rates for major colleges and universities, major shopping malls, major hospitals, and Lambert International Airport. These changes have been approved and adopted by EWGCC.

 In keeping with Federal Transit Administration guidelines for analysis of transit alternatives, trip distribution will only be run one time - for the base case TSM forecast - and the resulting person-trip distribution will be used for projecting travel demand for all alternative strategy sets. Hence, the model will not take into account any potential induced trip-making which could result from enhanced accessibility. Likewise, the model does not allow any changes to the future land use or employment projections that might be induced to occur with implementation of any of the strategies.

 The models used in this study were validated to actual 1994 traffic counts and transit patronage, using an interpolation of the 1990 and 1996 socioeconomic data sets as input.

6.1.2 Land Use and Socioeconomic Data

 EWGCC also supplied their files of socioeconomic data for use in the model.  Separate files of land use and demographic data for the years 1990, 1996, and 2015 were provided. All future year projections in this study, including assumptions about the future distribution of employment in downtown St. Louis, Clayton, and other portions of St. Louis County, were based on the EWGCC's current regional demographic projections for the year 2015. These projections were prepared independently by EWGCC, for use in all regional transportation planning studies.

6.1.3 Future Travel Demand Estimates

 As with any mathematical model that attempts to predict human behavior twenty years in the future, a range of uncertainty is inherent in the process. It is, though, generally accepted in the planning profession that models such as the urban travel demand model used in this study provide a reliable and effective comparison of the relative differences among an array of alternative transportation strategies, and also provide the best available source of projections of absolute levels of travel by the various modes.

 All of the transportation improvements considered as a part of this study were modeled only as elements of a complete strategy set package. Because of the interrelationship of the various discrete strategies and their effects on each other, each individual discrete strategy was not modeled as a distinct solution. Rather, each strategy set was modeled as a distinct alternative system that would account for all of the interrelationships.

 Output from the model includes a wide variety of statistical travel data projected to occur with each of the alternative strategy sets. Regional, county, district, and corridor-level summaries of trip-making are included, as well as total person trips, transit person trips, and mode shares. All summaries reflect stratification by trip purpose and, for transit trips, also include stratification by access mode. Highway travel projections include estimates of vehicle miles traveled, vehicle hours of travel (free-flow and congested), and congested travel speeds. Peak period and daily link volumes are also available for select roadways within the corridor. Supplemental transit data includes mode-specific tabulations of daily ridership, peak line volumes, and station boardings and alightings.

6.2 TRANSPORTATION IMPACTS

Transportation impacts resulting from changes to the regional transportation system that would occur with each of the ten alternative strategy sets were analyzed using the EWGCC regional travel demand model described above. The model produces a wide range of statistics regarding projected travel, and a number of these were selected for use in this analysis. Since this study examined a variety of modes, statistics relevant to person-travel regardless of mode were used wherever possible. These statistics, or "performance measures", were used to evaluate how effective each strategy is in addressing the problems and issues identified in the study area.

6.2.1 General Transportation Measures

 A variety of statistics relevant to all modes were extracted from the model results to provide indicators of how each strategy set addresses the problems of traffic congestion, accessibility, mobility, safety and security, and community and regional viability. In several instances, measures were selected that focus on trips between specific locations. These locations were chosen for a variety of reasons, including their importance in the study area, their direct relationship to specific problems identified in the scoping process, and their ability to be representative of a large number of similar trips. Obviously many other origin-destination pairs could have been selected for this evaluation. The study team believes that those used present a balanced, representative reflection of the transportation impacts of the strategy sets. The transportation measures relevant to all modes used in the comparative analysis are presented below. Detailed definitions of the measures and their actual values for each strategy set are presented in Section 9 of Technical Memorandum No. 6, Evaluation and Comparison of Alternatives.

Person-Hours of Travel and of Delay
 Mode Split
 Weighted Average Travel Time from Major Employment Centers
 Weighted Average Travel Time from Major Shopping Centers
 Weighted Average Travel Time from Other Major Attractions
 Travel Times Between Selected Zone Pairs
 Weighted Average Travel Time for Peak Period Trips to Clayton and Downtown St. Louis CBDs

6.2.2 Mode-Specific Transportation Measures

 In some instances, the problems identified in the problem definition process were of necessity mode-specific. For these problems, mode-specific measures were selected to evaluate how the strategies address those problems. These measures are:

Freeway and Arterial Lane-Miles at Level-of-Service E or Worse
 Vehicle-Hours of Travel
 Vehicle-Miles of Travel
 Vehicle-Miles of Travel By Road Classification
 Percent of Vehicle Miles Traveled on Limited-Access Roadways
 Changes in Proportion of Rail Transit vs Bus Boardings
 Average Transit Travel Times Weighted by % of Low Auto-Ownership Households

6.2.3 Other Transportation Measures

 In addition to the evaluation measures listed above, a number of other measures were used to assess the effectiveness of the transportation solutions. A number of these transportation measures were not derived from the output of the transportation demand models. These non-model transportation measures included the following:

Peak Hour Person-Carrying Capacity in the Corridor
 Ease of Increasing Capacity Within the Corridor
 Improves Access to the Regional Highway System
 Rail Transit Access to Major Destinations
 Disruption During Construction
 Elimination of Hazardous Features

 The actual value of key transportation measures for each of the strategy sets and for select discrete strategies are presented in Section 7 of this report.

6.3 COST ESTIMATES

6.3.1 Capital Cost Estimating Methodology

 Generally, capital cost estimates were developed by identifying major construction items or system components, developing unit costs for each, and applying those unit costs to the estimated quantities of each major item or component. One-time "soft" costs for engineering, administration, construction management and supervision, legal and insurance expenses, and similar items necessary for completion of construction were also included. These costs were estimated as a percentage of the total construction cost.

 Highway-specific capital cost estimates were based on unit costs for a variety of items within six major component categories. These major categories were site preparation, pavement, structures, interchanges, land acquisition, and miscellaneous items. Unit costs were drawn from recent Missouri Department of Transportation cost data. A contingency of 30% was added to all of the major cost elements, including right-of-way.

 Transit capital costs were based on historic unit costs escalated to 1996 dollars for particular types of LRT alignment, such as at-grade, below-grade, on structure, etc.  These unit costs were estimated on a per-mile basis, and included provision of trackwork, traction power, signals and communication, and utility relocation. Unit costs for a total of 29 different types of alignment were used. Station costs were estimated on a lump sum basis by type of station, for nine different station types. Right-of-way costs were estimated on a parcel-by-parcel basis based on the type of improvements on the property, and on a per-mile basis along the alignment for standard legal and acquisition costs. Costs for LRT vehicles were based on recent purchase prices for the current MetroLink vehicles. The number of cars was estimated as the total needed to operate two-car trains at the peak period headway plus 15% spares. Yard and shop capital costs were estimated as a linear function of the number of new vehicles, at the pro-rata share of the cost of a facility that would service a 50-car fleet. A contingency percentage of 20% was added to all construction items. A contingency of 50% was used for right-of-way estimates, and 10% for vehicle costs.

 The resulting capital cost estimates are presented in Section 4 of Technical Memorandum No. 6, Evaluation and Comparison of Alternatives.

6.3.2 Operating Cost Estimating Methodology

 Highway operating and maintenance unit costs were obtained from the Missouri Department of Transportation and from St. Louis County and City. Patrol costs were obtained from the Missouri Highway Patrol. Major cost components included pavement, shoulders and approaches, drainage, bridges, snow and ice control, traffic signals, and miscellaneous (including equipment and labor salary-related expenses).

 Operating costs for rail transit were based on the Operating Cost Model developed for the St. Louis light rail transit system as used previously for the St. Clair and St. Charles MetroLink extension studies. The principal cost components include operations, maintenance of equipment, maintenance of way, and general and administrative expenses

 O&M cost estimates for each of the strategies are presented in Section 5 of Technical Memorandum No. 6, Evaluation and Comparison of Alternatives.

6.3.3 Financial Feasibility Measures

A number of evaluation measures were developed to examine the capital and operating costs and cost-effectiveness aspects of each of the strategy sets. These measures include the following:

Capital Cost
 Annual Operating and Maintenance Cost
 Annualized Life-Cycle Cost Per Reduced Person-Hour of Travel
 Annualized Life-Cycle Cost Per Reduced Travel Delay
 Annualized Life-Cycle Cost Per New Daily Transit Rider
 Annualized Cost to Society

 These measures are defined in Section 9 of Technical Memorandum No. 6,Evaluation and Comparison of Alternatives.

6.4 SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

 An analysis of the social, economic, and environmental effects of each of the discrete transportation strategies was conducted to identify the potential for significant impacts, as well as the potential for significant differences in impacts between alternative strategies. Wherever possible, impacts attributable to each individual strategy were quantified, and then aggregated to show the cumulative impact of the combined strategies in each Strategy Set.

6.4.1 Relationship to NEPA Environmental Analysis

 The study process of this Major Transportation Investment Analysis was structured to precede the detailed environmental analysis that would be conducted for an environmental impact statement. Those strategies selected for further development following Phase II of this study, and for which federal funding will be sought, will be subjected to the detailed environmental analysis required by NEPA. This approach is consistent with the conceptual level of detail to which the alternative strategies have been developed; in most instances in the current MTIA, the engineering detail necessary to support an EIS-level environmental analysis simply does not exist, and will be developed only in the preliminary engineering phase, following the MTIA.

6.4.2 Impact Areas

 The discrete strategies were evaluated in each of the particular disciplines of environmental analysis to identify if that strategy presented a "fatal flaw" or other major impact that would be sufficiently significant to affect the MTIA decision-making process. The specific discipline areas investigated included the following:

land use plan compatibility
 land acquisition and displacements
 economic impacts
 neighborhood impacts
 historic or cultural resources
 noise
 air quality
 wetlands
 floodplains
 special habitats

The methodologies employed to conduct these evaluations have been presented in Technical Memorandum 5A, Social, Economic, and Environmental Methodologies.  These impact areas include several of the evaluation categories used in the comparative analysis, such as Community and Regional Viability, Neighborhood Concerns, Noise and Air Quality, the Natural Environment, and Equity issues. The following measures are defined in detail in Section 9 of Technical Memorandum No. 6,Evaluation and Comparison of Alternatives.

Number of New Transit Stations
Reduction of Vehicular Traffic in Residential Neighborhoods
Non-Auto Trip % and Reduction in VMT on Lower-Classification-Roadways
Enhances Major Employment or Business Centers
Fosters Redevelopment of Underutilized Areas
Effect on Community Tax Base
Businesses Displaced
Dwelling Units Displaced
Net Park Area Lost
Number of Community Facilities Displaced
Number of Residences Taken
Generates Traffic in Residential Areas
Neighborhood Aesthetics
Impact on Historic or Cultural Sites
Noise Impacts
Emission of Air Pollutants
Impact on Streams
Protected Species
Floodplain impacts
Weighted Average Travel Time for Non-Car-Owners
Low Income Residential Relocations as a Percentage of Total Relocations

6.5 FINANCIAL ANALYSIS

 The financial analyses conducted as part of this study examined the ability of existing financial resources to meet the capital, operating, and maintenance costs of the several strategy sets under consideration. These analyses also identified and evaluated potential new revenue sources, and developed financial plans for the construction and operation of the strategy sets. As part of this analysis, the financial capacities of both MoDOT and Bi-State were reviewed.

6.5.1 Funding Sources

 Financial analysis for the study included a review of all potential funding sources.  These included federal, state and local government, and other local funding sources.  Federal sources have historically provided the greatest share of funding for transportation construction, and have heretofore provided that assistance on a relatively mode-specific basis. The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) has greatly increased the flexibility with which local transportation officials can use federal funds between the highway and transit modes. At the same time, recent public sector budget pressures have limited the amount of federal funding available, particularly for transit projects.

 Another factor affecting potential federal transit funding is the current federal practice of funding only one major rail transit project at a time in a single metropolitan area. With federal funds currently committed to the St. Clair County MetroLink extension to Belleville Area Community College, a continuation of that practice would make it unlikely that significant FTA funding would be available for another MetroLink extension until after completion of the St. Clair County extension construction, currently estimated for June, 2001.

 The availability of federal highway funding is somewhat more predictable. The analysis has considered the federal highway funding expected to be available to the state of Missouri, and the portion of that expected to be available to the St. Louis region. Highway requirements in the other parts of the St. Louis region outside the Cross-County corridor will of course be competing for a significant portion of those available funds. The exact portion of the regional share that can be devoted to Cross-County projects will be a local political decision.

 The principal local funding source for transit projects is the County Public Transit Sales Tax Trust Fund, or "Proposition M". This quarter-percent sales tax is expected to generate a combined total of approximately $36 million annually from St. Louis County and the city of St. Louis.

6.5.2 Implementation Schedules

 A wide variety of factors can influence the schedule for implementation of the alternative strategy sets under consideration. In fact, because each strategy set contains several separate modal elements, each with their own implementing agency, the actual implementation schedules will in all likelihood ultimately be developed independently once a decision is made to proceed with a particular package. Other factors that will influence the implementation schedule will be the availability of funding, design/construction options (whether conventional or design-build), and whether or not federal funds will be used in the project.

 Capital cost estimates for the various strategy sets under consideration range from several hundred million dollars to over two billion dollars. For combinations of projects of that magnitude, staging of projects may be necessary over more than a ten-year period. With the development of projects using entirely local funds, it is likely that essentially the same level of planning and environmental analysis will be conducted, but the sometimes lengthy federal process of document review and approval may be shortened considerably if only local approvals are required. Another issue potentially affecting implementation schedules is the interrelationship of multimodal projects within the same general corridor. There may be significant cost efficiencies to be obtained by coordinating construction, as well as minimization of construction disruption.

6.5.3 Financial Feasibility

 For each of the strategy sets, a reasonable implementation schedule was developed in light of the funding anticipated to be available. These schedules are based on presumptions by the Study Team regarding the percentage of regional transportation dollars that could be dedicated to the Cross-County Corridor in light of the competing interests in the rest of the region. All of the strategy sets were estimated to cost less than the total transportation funding available to the region over the next 19 years (1997 - 2015). For the most expensive sets, difficult political decisions will need to be made regarding transportation priorities in the region, and it will be necessary to draw out the implementation schedule over a greater period of years.

6.5.4 Financial Feasibility Measures

 A number of evaluation measures were developed to rate the financial feasibility of each of the strategy sets. These measures are the following:

Percentage of Anticipated Regional Transportation Funding Required
Feasibility of Alternative Revenue Sources
Potential for Private Sector Participation

 These measures are defined and quantified in Technical Memorandum No. 6, Evaluation and Comparison of Alternatives.

7.0 COMPARISON OF ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES

To facilitate comparative evaluation of the large number of alternative actions considered in the Cross-County Corridor, those alternatives were grouped into ten (10) Strategy Sets, each with a different array of strategies to be implemented in each of the subcorridors of the study area. As those Strategy Sets were compared, more detailed evaluations were made of some of the discrete strategy components of the Strategy Sets. This section describes the structured evaluation process used to compare the Strategy Sets and presents details of the comparisons of the Strategy Sets and the discrete strategies.

7.1 COMPARISON OF STRATEGY SETS

7.1.1 Structured Evaluation Process

For the evaluation of the ten alternative Strategy Sets described in Section 5 of this report, a structured process was developed by the Consultant (with input from the Study Mangers) to evaluate how each of the Strategy Sets addressed the problems and issues identified in Phase I of the study. In Phase 1, evaluation criteria were developed to screen the broad conceptual strategies to determine those strategies that merited further evaluation in Phase 2. The Phase 2 structured evaluation presented here builds on the initial evaluation criteria by maintaining the same basic categories of evaluation, but investigating them in more detail as allowed by the greater specificity to which the strategies were developed through the conceptual engineering process.

While having more detail on the strategies allows the development and evaluation of a significantly larger number of measures to rate their effectiveness, it is still necessary, ultimately, to aggregate the measures used in the structured evaluation to a more manageable number of variables on which to base recommendations. This structured evaluation process is summarized in the following sections.

The general principle for the Phase 2 evaluation was to employ the same basic standards for evaluation which were established in the problem identification process of Phase 1. To effectively use the additional detail available in Phase 2 regarding the strategies, a hierarchical structure of evaluation categories, criteria, and performance measures was developed. Within the eleven evaluation categories, a total of 32 evaluation criteria were established. These criteria were intended to assess how the Strategy Sets perform in addressing the problems and issues. In order to quantify these criteria from the detailed analysis data available, the criteria were further subdivided into 50 performance measures. The diagram (Figure 7-1) on the following page summarizes the structure of this process.

The eleven evaluation categories are all subsets themselves of the four evaluation perspectives of Effectiveness, Financial Feasibility, Cost-Effectiveness, and Equity established in the USDOT's Major Investment Study guidelines.

7.1.1.1 Performance Measures The most basic level of analysis in this evaluation structure is therefore the performance measure. In some instances, these performance measures are objective numbers, derived from a quantification of some aspect of the Strategy Set, and are expressed in precise units of the measure. Examples of such objective measures include estimated capital cost, number of residential relocations, and total hours of traveler delay.

In several cases where the measure cannot be precisely calculated, the performance measures include a qualitative element, and are expressed on a rating scale of 0 to 5.  Qualitative measures are evaluated based on the professional judgement of the Consultant study team. Examples of this type of measure include disruption during construction, travelers' sense of security, likely effects on community tax base, etc.

The diagrammatic representation of the evaluation process structure (Figure 7-1) is completely developed and presented at Table 7-1. This tabulation clearly depicts the association made by the Study Team of selected multiple performance measures to selected specific evaluation criteria, and the subsequent association of one or more evaluation criteria to an agreed upon specific evaluation category. As indicated above, the number of parameters creates an extensive tabulation.

7.1.1.2 Performance Measure Scores In order to allow aggregation of the various performance measures into a value for a single evaluation criteria, it was necessary to convert the raw number of each performance measure into a relative score for each Strategy Set as compared to the others. These scores were expressed to one decimal place within a range of 0 to 5, with the higher score always indicating the "best".  Scores for each of the 50 performance measures were calculated by the Consultant study team to reflect the relative differences among the ten Strategy Sets. This was a mostly objective process, with minimum "value judgements" entering into the scoring. The values for the 50 raw performance measures for each Strategy Set are presented on Table 9-1 in Section 9 of TM No. 6, Evaluation and Comparison of Alternatives.

7.1.1.3 Evaluation Criteria Score Subsequently, and to arrive at a single score for each of the 32 evaluation criteria, the individual performance measure scores contributing to each evaluation criterion were summed and  averaged. This process reflects the implicit assumption that each performance measure contributes equally to the evaluation criteria score.  These averaged scores provide an indication of the relative effectiveness of each of the ten Strategy Sets at addressing each of the particular evaluation criteria.

7.1.1.4 Relative Weighting of Evaluation Criteria It was recognized that each individual might well place a somewhat different value on each of the evaluation criteria, and that therefore a mechanical averaging process could not be used to reduce the scores for the 32 evaluation criteria to scores for the 11 evaluation categories. 

To allow the aggregation of the 32 criteria scores into a single score for each of the evaluation categories in a manner that reflected the values of the Consultant study team, a relative weighting process was used. Each individual member of the Consultant study team developed a personal percentage weighting value for each of the evaluation criteria within each category.  The personal weighting percentages were then averaged to yield an overall Consultant study team weighting for each evaluation criteria.  These weightings were then applied to the evaluation criteria scores to produce weighted scores for each of the eleven evaluation categories.  Details of this process and the actual percentage weightings used are presented in Technical Memorandum 5G, Evaluation of Alternatives Methodology.

7.1.1.5 Relative Weighting of Evaluation Categories The preceding steps in the evaluation process resulted in a set of eleven scores (one in each of the eleven evaluation categories) for each of the ten Strategy Sets.  The weighting process was then repeated in similar fashion for the eleven evaluation categories, resulting in a final numeric score for each of the  ten Strategy Sets, with the highest score indicating the "better" Strategy Set for addressing the transportation problems and issues -- based solely on the average relative weights assigned.

The results of this process, as presented to the Study Management Group, are shown in the table (Table 7-2) on the following page.  While this approach resulted in a single numeric solution, it is of course highly dependent upon the relative values placed on each of the evaluation criteria.

The weighted score approach described above does permit an enormous amount of diverse data to be translated into a single numeric score. This may be a useful tool in a decision-maker's tool box, but it may also not be either the only tool or the most appropriate to the job at hand.  A single weighted score may mask specific issues or details that are seemingly contained in a  performance measure, or criterion.  The results of this structured evaluation process, shown in the following table, were made available to the members of the Cross-County Corridor Study Management Group in their decision-making process, which is described in Section 8 of this report.

Viewed only in the context of this table, which summarizes the process thus far, Strategy Set No. 10 would appear to be the "most responsive" to the transportation problems and issues in the Corridor, while Strategy Set No. 1 would be the "least responsive."

7.1.2 Key Strategy Set Comparisons

In addition to evaluating the Strategy Sets using a weighted scores process as described above, comparative data on key performance indicators and important identified public issues was also presented to the Study Management Group for their review and evaluation.  The following table presents a summary of the key comparisons for the ten Strategy Sets which were evaluated by the SMG.

The performance indicators presented in Table 7-3 were selected to provide a comparison among the Strategy Sets of how each addressed the key problems and issues highlighted earlier in the study. The above indicators provide objective projections of how each Strategy Set will contribute to community and regional viability, reduce traffic congestion, improve accessibility to major attractions in the study area, and improve mobility for residents of this portion of the region among other issues.  Metrics are also included which indicate the social and environmental impacts each Strategy Set would involve, as well as indications of the financial feasibility, cost effectiveness, and equity of each of the alternative Strategy Sets. 

7.2  COMPARISON OF DISCRETE STRATEGIES

The ten Strategy Sets were constructed of specific combinations of discrete strategies.  Any number of additional Strategy Sets could have been generated by even more combinations and permutations of candidate, discrete strategies.

For the Study Management Group and the entire Study Team, clear patterns of impacts — both positive and negative — emerged from the relative measures of performance.  Some  measures are nearly independent of conventional multi-modal interaction (e.g., right of way acquisition), and thus can only be assessed in the context of the relative size of a measure's metric (e.g., reduction in auto (or transit) travel times to major destinations).

Using the described evaluation methodology,  the Study Management Group isolated the best performing Strategy Sets and weighed community sentiments toward components of the best performing Strategy Sets.

Table 7-4, beginning on the following page, presents comparisons of key measures for the major components, or discrete strategies, which were encompasssed by one or more of the best performing Strategy Sets.

8.0 FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The structure of the Cross-County Corridor MTIA placed the responsibility for policy level decisions with the project's Study Management Group (SMG), comprised of local, state and federal representatives. This structure was determined and implemented by the sponsoring agencies, prior to the selection of the study consultant. Agencies and organizations represented on the SMG are listed below. In a letter to the sponsoring agencies dated February 11, 1997, the FTA requested their agency be listed as "ex-officio" with the reason given that federal agencies do not participate in the local decision-making process.

• St. Louis County
• St. Louis City
• St. Louis County Municipal League
• Citizens for Modern Transit
• Regional Commerce and Growth Association
• East-West Gateway Coordinating Council
• Missouri Department of Transportation
• Bi-State Development Agency
• Missouri Department of Natural Resources
• Federal Highway Administration
• Federal Transit Administration
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

At the conclusion of the MTIA process, it was the task of the Study Management Group to make a final recommendation to the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council's Board of Directors regarding the Cross-County Corridor MTIA strategies that should be included in the region's long range transportation plan, Transportation Redefined. In making these decisions, the SMG took into account how each of the Strategy Sets addressed the transportation goals and objectives at the national, regional, and local levels. As identified in Transportation Redefined, these goals and objectives were grouped for decision-making purposes into seven focus areas: 1) preservation of existing infrastructure, 2) safety and security in travel, 3) congestion management, 4) access to opportunity, 5) sustainable development, 6) the efficient movement of goods, and 7) resource conservation.

8.1 STUDY MANAGEMENT GROUP MEETINGS

In order to allow the SMG members to make an informed decision, two working meetings of the SMG were held to brief the group on the study findings. On January 7, 1997, a presentation was made by the Consultants which reviewed the purpose of the Cross-County Corridor MTIA, the Problem Statement developed as a result of the information gathered by the study team, and strategies reviewed and eliminated during Phase 1 of the MTIA. Each of the discrete strategies studied in Phase 2 were presented, as well as pertinent information relative to each strategy set.

Information presented included a description of each strategy set; computer-generated renderings for at least one strategy in each subcorridor which showed how the strategy might appear, along with a "before" photo of the actual location; problems and issues addressed by the strategy; known constraints (such as property-specific limitations) or issues that may develop as a result of the strategy (displacements); and typical cross-sections of the various strategies which were studied. Background documents were also made available to the group for their review. These included evaluation and comparison results for each strategy set for criteria such as number of potential displacements, noise impacts, floodplain encroachments, air quality impact, cost, and financial feasibility analysis results. This information can be found in Technical Memorandum 6, Evaluation and Comparison of Alternatives.

The entire meeting was videotaped by the Missouri Department of Transportation, with copies provided to cable station outlets in St. Louis City and County. In addition, the entire video was played at the public open house meeting on January 22, 1997, to provide members of the general public the same information presented to the SMG, as well as allowing them the benefit of hearing the discussion among SMG members as the information was presented.

After the members had time to review and discuss the study results with their respective agencies/organizations, the group was reconvened on February 25, 1997, to allow questions to be asked and clarifications given. The group also discussed the manner in which consensus on

the recommendation would be reached. Updated summaries of the structural evaluation results (described in Section 7 of this report) were provided to the SMG at this meeting.

8.2 STUDY MANAGEMENT GROUP RECOMMENDATION

The SMG met on March 24, 1997, at the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council office to make a recommendation on the proposed alternatives. Members came to the meeting, well aware of the various public views on the strategies. At the public open house held on January 22, names and addresses of SMG members were made available to individuals wanting to communicate directly with the decision-makers their positions on the various strategies.  Consequently, many interests (both pro and con for specific strategies) employed targeted "lobbying" of many, if not all, of the SMG members. To complement the direct information received from the public, two handouts developed by the study managers from East-West Gateway and the Missouri Department of Transportation were provided to members. Both of these handouts are contained in Appendix B of this document.

The first study manager's handout, "Timelines for Projects Developed from Strategies," showed in tabular form each improvement by subcorridor, and how long it was estimated the improvement would take to develop and construct. These timelines were a factor of reasoned assessments of financing, developmental planning, design and (as required) right-of-way acquisition, and construction durations. In a very real sense, these timelines evidenced for the SMG decision-makers a practical measure of when the variety of proposed alternatives might (if at all) be in place to generate ultimate, forecasted impacts on the transportation system and the communities this system serves. Concurrently, this information provided a basis for the SMG to assess the relative financial capacity of the region to implement strategies. Given competing transportation projects elsewhere in the region (i.e., outside the Cross-County Corridor) and the uncertainties associated with probable sources of (local, state and federal) funds, the SMG had another tool by way of these timelines to gauge the short- and long-range project implementation possibilities of Discrete Strategies.

The second handout provided to SMG members contained staff recommendations on specific Discrete Strategies. Along with these recommendations and serving as bases for same, this handout outlined in which subcorridor(s) the strategy applied, a description of the improvement, cost factors, and indicators of how well the strategies addressed the problems and issues identified through the study process. The quantitative and qualitative data contained in this second handout was derived from (or, in some cases, is identical to) the tabulations presented in Section 7 of this Final MTIA Report, and/or the results of the evaluation and comparisons of the Strategy Sets and the Discrete Strategies found in Technical Memorandum No. 6.

Members of the SMG decided to vote to accept the staff recommendations as the SMG's recommendation, with each member having the opportunity to provide footnotes on specific strategies if they desired. Having all agreed to this process, the SMG unanimously approved that the following strategies for the Cross-County Corridor MTIA be recommended to the Board of Directors of the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council for inclusion in the region's long-range plan. The adopted strategies are shown on Figure 8-1 on the following page.

8.3 EAST-WEST GATEWAY BOARD ACTION

On March 26, 1997, the Board of Directors of the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council met to consider the Study Management Group's recommendations for the Cross-County Corridor MTIA. The Board voted unanimously to amend the Council's long-range transportation plan to include the Cross-County Corridor's Study Management Group recommendation of a preferred strategy, with project scheduling subject to the region's financial capacity. A copy of the EWGCC staff recommendation to the Board is included in Appendix C of this document. The Board specifically voted to amend the long-range plan to include the following preferred strategies, which are shown graphically on Figure 8-1 at the end of this section.

• Transportation Systems Management
• Arterial street and signalization improvements
• Incident management and signalization improvements
• Freeway ramp metering
• Bus service improvements
• MetroLink Expansion
• Stage 1: Existing MetroLink to Clayton and south to Butler Hill Rd.
• Stage 2: Clayton north to I-270/Florissant
• I-170 (North) Interchange Improvements
• Interchanges: Forest Park Parkway, Ladue, Delmar, Olive, Page, I-270
• Lane additions: Scudder to I-270
• Pavement reconstruction: I-64 to north of Page
• I-64 (East) Interchange Improvements
• Interchanges: Brentwood/I-170/Hanley, Big Bend, McCausland/Clayton/Oakland, Hampton, Kingshighway, Tower Grove (eliminate interchanges at Laclede Station Road and Bellevue)
• Auxiliary lanes
• Pavement reconstruction
• I-64 (West) Interchange Improvements and Lane Additions
• Interchanges: McKnight, Clayton, Lindbergh, Spoede
• Lane additions: I-170 to Spoede
• Pavement reconstruction

The array of discrete transportation strategies recommended by the Study Management Group for implementation in the Cross-County Corridor will provide significant progress toward the local and regional goals in each of these areas. In both the I-64 and I-170 corridors, the recommended reconstruction of the existing highways will allow this infrastructure to serve as major transportation arteries well into the 21st century. This reconstruction will also eliminate a number of physical traffic safety problem areas, thereby improving overall highway safety.  Improvements to the interchanges and Transportation System Management improvements will have a significant effect on reduction of peak period congestion on these facilities, and the recommended extension of the MetroLink system will further reduce highway congestion in the crowded central corridor. The MetroLink extensions to Clayton and north and south St. Louis County will provide greatly increased access to jobs and services for all those who must rely on the public transit system for their transportation.

By focusing all of these transportation improvements in the older, developed core of St. Louis, the recommended strategies will serve to encourage sustainable development by inducing more redevelopment in the area and reducing the impetus for greater and greater sprawl outward to the region's rural fringes. To the extent that these strategies reduce congestion on the region's highways, this will aid the efficient movement of goods within and through the region. Finally, the recommended strategies will result in reduced emissions of air pollutants and more efficient travel within the corridor.

In aggregate, the recommended improvements will increase the viability of the central corridor and the inner-ring suburbs, encourage reinvestment in these established areas, and - by directly linking downtown St. Louis and Clayton - reinforce the role of these two areas as the principal centers of commerce in the region. By maintaining the vigor of these areas, and supporting existing development and encouraging further redevelopment, the recommended strategies will directly contribute to maintaining and improving the livability of the communities in the Cross-County Corridor.

It should be noted that the SMG deferred to the Board the decision on a specific alignment for MetroLink in the east subcorridor (existing MetroLink to Clayton). The Transit Steering Committee of the Board had earlier recommended to the full Board that a more detailed assessment of the several options be conducted before a MetroLink alignment decision is made in the east subcorridor. Staff anticipates that the assessment will be complete by September, 1997, and based on that the Board deferred a MetroLink alignment decision in the east subcorridor.