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Section 4 - Alternatives - Detailed Description <br />2035 LRTP and CTP <br />Alternatives — Detailed Description <br />Purpose of Alternatives <br />The DCHC MPO plans to develop and evaluate several Alternatives in the process to <br />create the 2035 Long Range Transportation Plan. Each Alternative will be a combination <br />of a Transportation System, which includes a set of highway, transit and other <br />transportation improvements, and a Land Use Scenario that distributes the forecasted <br />population and employment for the year 2035. These Alternatives will be run in the <br />Triangle Regional Model (TRM) to produce a set of transportation performance measures <br />that describe how the transportation system will handle the travel demand generated by a <br />particular population and employment distribution in the year 2035. These performance <br />measures, such as the level of roadway congestion, average travel time, and transit <br />ridership, will be used to evaluate and compare the various Alternatives. <br />In the next major step in the 2035 LRTP development process, the public, elected <br />officials and technical staff will use this evaluation and comparison information to create <br />a single Alternative that best meets the MPO's Goals and Objectives and the fiscal <br />constrain requirement that demands that the project costs do not exceed the expected <br />funding revenues. This final Alternative is called the Preferred Option, and it will also go <br />through an extensive public review process similar to that of the Alternatives. <br />It should be noted that it is very unlikely that one of the Alternatives in its entirety would <br />be advanced as the Preferred Option. These Alternatives have been designed to <br />emphasize a particular mode in meeting the future travel demands so that the public and <br />technical staff can understand how well the designated mode works. For example, the <br />Intensive Highway Alternative has a high level of High - Occupancy Vehicle /Toll <br />(HOV/HOT), road widenings and new roads, a relatively low level of bus transit and no <br />fixed- guideway (e.g., light rail) to meet the future demands. The Alternative is helpful in <br />understanding the effect of increased roadway capacity on specific corridor congestion, <br />travel time, mode share and other performance measures. This knowledge will be used to <br />develop the Preferred Option, which is likely to have a lower level of roadway expansion <br />than the Intensive Highway Alternative and a more balanced modal approach. <br />Development of Alternatives <br />The table on the page 3 shows the combinations of Transportation Systems and Land Use <br />Scenarios that will be modeled for the 2035 LRTP development process. Each of these <br />Transportation Systems will be combined with one, or more, Land Use Scenarios to <br />create an Alternative. <br />4-1 <br />