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North Front Range Transportation and Air Quality Planning Council Regular Meeting 6/1/2023

Meeting Summary by Matt Liberati


Summary

  • Congestion Management Process Approved

  • May TIP Amendment Approved

  • 2050 RTP Goals, Objectives, Performance Measures, and Targets (GOPMT) Approved with safety goal added

Meeting Notes

Air Pollution Control Division Presentation

  • Focused on ozone season and ozone planning

  • Updated daily ozone emails for clarity

  • Reduce Ozone Planning

  • Oil and gas drilling and pre production operations

  • Diesel engines and natural gas engines under 1000 horsepower

  • Regulations proposed in the fall

  • Colorado Clean cars program encourage low and zero emitting cars July rulemaking request

  • Exploring fees with the emission of greenhouse gases

  • Exploring rulemaking on reducing emission of greenhouse gases from industrial and manufacturing sector

  • Passed enhanced permitting requirements with disproportionately impacted communities

Suggestion that 3 members need to voice agreement before staff takes research action


Discussion about Transportation Planning Regions (TPR) changes

  • Each TPR will have one transit representative

  • There will remain 10 rural TPR

  • Work with TPR to update bylaws

  • 5 public discussion meetings this summer about Boundary changes

  • Report to the transportation commission on Boundary recommendations by Nov 30th 2023

  • Transportation commission consider Boundary recommendations by June 2024

Sector Specific Plan (SSP) Grant Discussion

  • Not going after SSP grants from a regional level

  • Some local areas are pursuing grants requires action plan completion

  • Fort Collins has an action plan in place already

  • Weld County is going after it

  • Loveland and Windsor are possibly pursuing it

Shift Your Ride

  • Document alternate transportation beside single occupancy vehicle and be entered to win a prize

  • Open June 1 to August 31


RAQC (Regional Air Quality Council)

  • Creates State Implementation Plans for 8 hour ozone nonattainment area Northern Colorado and Denver Metropolitan areas for eventual approval by EPA

  • Hires consultants for ozone modeling and education programs

  • Budget for Northern Subarea (North of Boulder County direct line across into Weld) and Southern Subarea

State Demographer Presentation Elizabeth Garner State Demographer

  • State Growth slowing 26,000 per year last 2 years vs 75,000 average last decade

  • Highest growth 65+, Low growth working population, very low growth under 18

  • Weld County still growing fastest due to affordability bedroom community for jobs in other counties lots of transportation activities

  • Larimer County slower growth and 50% is 65+ in the next decade

  • Jobs are counted by place of employment so working from home job is at headquarters not home

  • Colorado Sixth Highest Median Home Price, Fourth Highest Median Rent, Tenth Highest Median Income

  • 50% of Larimer County growth in the next decade is 65+

North Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization Models for 2050

  • Land Use: Forecast location of population and jobs

  • CDOT uses this model for state projections

  • Travel Model: Forecast travel patterns

  • Validated by looking at actual traffic counts in a 5 year period

  • Coordinate with CDOT to track trips that leave the study area of Weld and Larimer counties

Resolution 2023-10 Congestion Management Process

  • Reduced crash count from all of Larimer/Weld to areas in the region

  • Made Updates from June meetings

  • Passed Unanimously

Resolution 2023-11 May 2023 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) Amendment

  • Revising CDOT Region 4’s project I-25 Segment 5 (CO56 to CO66) by adding $137,857K TIFIA Loan funding in FY24.

  • Revising Greeley’s 10th Street Access Control Implementation project by removing $2,429K STBG/Local and increasing LOM by $2,429K.

  • Revising Greeley’s 83rd Avenue Roadway Improvements project by adding $2,429K STBG/Local and decreasing LOM by $2,249K.

  • Revising the RAQC’s Regional Ozone Planning, Modeling, and Analysis project by adding $30K STBG/Local each year in FY24 and FY25.

  • Incorporating the Greeley Program of Projects (POP) including the following revisions in FY2023:

  • Adding $2,047K FTA 5307/Local funding to Greeley-GET Operating Assistance 50/50

  • Adding $646K FTA 5307/Local funding to Greeley-GET ADA Operations 80/20

  • Decreasing $23K FTA 5307/Local funding from Greeley-GET Preventative Maintenance 80/20

  • Adding new project Greeley-GET Capital Projects 80/20 with $2,507K ($2,006K FTA5307/$501K Local) each year in FYs 2023-2026.

  • Passed Unanimously

2050 RTP Goals, Objectives, Performance Measures, and Targets (GOPMT) Goal Addition

  • Added Goal: Safety

  • Objective: Reduce the number of roadway related fatalities and serious injuries within the region

  • Passed Unanimously

2023 Call for Projects

  • Presented Framework for Scoring Projects based on Safety Regional Health Mobility Multimodal and Operations Goals and a small pool of Discretionary points for local priorities not reliant on data

  • Planning Council Schedule

  • July 6 Discussion on Draft Guidebook

  • August 3 Approval of Call Process

Tier 1 10 Year Plan Priorities List ~55 Million Available

  • US 34

  • I-25/SH14 Interchange Reconfiguration Phase 1

  • I-25/US34 Interchange

  • Discussion about adding more multimodal listings alongside road projects

  • Discussion about why a transit townhall isn’t scheduled for Northern Colorado

2050 Regional Transportation Plan Fiscally Constrained Plan

  • Outlines Transportation Projects from 2024-2050

  • 17 billion in costs and 13 billion in funding = funding gap of 4 Billion

  • 254 million in funding is unallocated question to council where to put it?

  • Council discussion generally supported allocating that money to capacity projects

Greenhouse Gas Transportation Report

  • 4 Strategies to reduce greenhouse gases

  • Transit (More regional transportation service and t)

  • Transportation Demand Management (Regional programs)

  • Operations (Arterial signal timing improvements)

  • Active Transportation (More bikes & more local bike and ped networks)

  • Board vote to approve in July

Transportation Commission Report

  • Additional 25 million in road repair across the state

  • 8 million for I-25 north of Fort Collins

  • Motorcycle safety month

CDOT Region 4 Update

  • Larimer County Meeting June 29th

  • Weld County Meeting June 22nd

  • Concrete Panel Replacement Project Advertisement 14 to Owl Canyon

  • Restructure 257 North of Windsor

  • Restructure 34 to Walnut Street South Windsor

Colorado Transportation Investment Office

  • 6.62 Million to spend

  • Looking at Bus Rapid Transit and Pedestrian Infrastructure

Front Range Passenger Rail District

  • Community Outreach

  • Service Development Plan

Host Council Member Report Greeley

  • Greeley has grown a lot and much of the growth is people of color

  • County Road 17 Project

  • Transit from Greeley to Loveland and to Fort Collins

Summary

  • Congestion Management Process Approved

  • May TIP Amendment Approved

  • 2050 RTP Goals, Objectives, Performance Measures, and Targets (GOPMT) Approved with safety goal added

Observer Follow-Up Questions

  • How will Weld County address growth and Larimer County address slower growth and more 65+ growth and how will these 2 different dynamics impact board actions moving forward?

  • How will the 2050 proposed transportation project funding gap of 4 billion be addressed?

  • How will council prioritize road projects and multi-modal projects?

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