Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Transit Safety topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
CVTA technical committee defers transit-safety scoring changes to subcommittee
Summary
The CVTA technical committee reviewed alternatives for scoring transit-safety in the regional project selection framework and agreed to reconvene a subcommittee for one more meeting before making a recommendation to the authority. Members flagged model limitations and possible use of DRPT merit or pedestrian-safety mapping.
The Central Virginia Transportation Authority technical committee on the meeting reviewed options for how transit-safety should be scored in the regional project selection and allocation framework and agreed to delay final action until a subcommittee meets again.
During presentation of the framework, the chair said “the one unresolved issue is transit safety,” and staff outlined why the existing approach—modeled after SmartScale using crash frequency and crash rate—raised concerns because projects on high-volume roads can score better than lower-volume but potentially riskier corridors. Staff presented several alternatives: remove the safety category, refine SmartScale by dropping crash rate, normalize scores differently, use DRPT’s merit-based safety criteria, or incorporate pedestrian-safety mapping (PSAP) and targeted access‑improvement points.
Modeling staff Miles said the scoring currently relies on the region’s four‑step travel demand model and that the team uses modeled changes in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) as a proxy for a crash-modification factor: “we have outputs of how many people were driving across the region, how many people were using transit, so we can calculate the shift in vehicle miles traveled,” Miles said, describing why there is not a single fixed percentage shift in every case. Members raised questions about whether the model’s trip-assignment or congestion assumptions could be adjusted to change projected transit ridership; staff replied that feedback loops are included and that modeling improvements will be considered as part of the long-range transportation plan update.
Staff and members noted that some scoring options require additional applicant data (feasibility studies, detailed service parameters, stop locations and headways) while other options—such as applying DRPT’s merit criteria—would use a defined, points-based evaluation tied to project elements like customer amenities, pedestrian access, or technology that reduce crashes.
The committee also heard that the regional TPO recently secured a Federal Highway Administration grant of about $1.5 million to develop an updated prioritization framework and to fund innovative research; staff said that work, starting next summer, could inform any longer-term changes to transit-safety scoring. Given those near‑term research opportunities and the practical data burdens of some approaches, the committee agreed that the subcommittee should meet once more to refine recommended metrics and then present a formal recommendation to the technical committee before any action is taken by the full authority.
Next steps: the transit-safety subcommittee will meet before the January 12, 2025 technical meeting to produce a recommendation for the technical committee.
