Orange County NC Website
Browse       Search
Item 8.a. <br />October 16, 2017 <br />Wannetta Mallette - Transportation Planner <br />Burlington- Graham MPO <br />234 East Summit Avenue <br />Burlington, NC 27215 <br />Re: October 17, 2017 B -G MPO Technical Coordinating Committee (TCC) and <br />Transportation Advisory Committee (TAC) Agenda Items — Approval of the <br />Prioritization 5.0 Project Submission List <br />Dear Ms. Mallette: <br />Comments on Process: <br />Orange County and other MPO member governments each submitted their <br />transportation project lists to MPO staff earlier this year. Since BGMPO has a limit on <br />the number of projects it can submit for scoring through the NCDOT Strategic <br />Prioritization Office (SPOT) 5.0 process, MPO staff used very preliminary scores, using <br />SPOT 4.0 calculations, to identify the shortened list of projects that would continue <br />through the SPOT 5.0 process. NCDOT is currently conducting a detailed review of all <br />submitted projects; it will apply its criteria, alternative weights, and cost analysis along <br />with any normalization curve NCDOT deems necessary in calculating the actual 5.0 <br />scores which are to be released in March 2018. It is likely that the same transportation <br />project scored using SPOT 4.0 will score differently during SPOT 5.0. <br />The deadline for submittal of BGMPO transportation projects for further consideration <br />during the SPOT 5.0 process was September 29, 2017. Assuming MPO staff met the <br />deadline and submitted projects on behalf of the MPO, the list of projects <br />included in the October 17 TCC and TAC agenda packets is now for the purpose <br />of the Committees information only. Orange County posits that the TCC and TAC <br />should have received the list of projects in advance of MPO staff's submittal. The <br />MPO no longer has the ability to make adjustments to its list of submitted projects for <br />further consideration during the SPOT process. However, it does have the ability to <br />further prioritize the list of projects submitted through the assignment of Local Input <br />Points, which is to occur in April 2018. <br />It may very well be that projects ranked 18 -22 based on SPOT 4.0 preliminary scores <br />would be better suited for SPOT 5.0 scoring or should at least be discussed regarding <br />their relative importance. <br />According to North Carolina's Strategic Transportation Investment Law, the first step in <br />establishing the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) is taken through the <br />SPOT process. The adopted STIP is what local MPO's use to develop their own <br />Metropolitan Transportation Improvement Program (TIP). Therefore, and consistent with <br />the BGMPO Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), the TCC is to provide <br />recommendations to the TAC for its review and approval of transportation projects prior <br />\\N\ <br />117 <br />