3. What is Transit Options?
Federal Transit Administration’s Alternatives
Analysis that:
– Evaluates transportation mode
– Alignment options
– Public outreach that includes:
• Benefits, cost and impacts of transportation options
– Results in a locally preferred transit improvement
project
4. What will it provide?
• More transportation options
• Enhance economic competitiveness
• Support existing communities and
neighborhoods
• Coordinate policies and leverage investment
• Value communities and neighborhoods
5. What are we doing here
tonight?
• Getting your input
– Identifying transit options
– Identifying opportunities, problems and
needs
7. Light Rail History
• First alternatives analysis started in 1975
• Construction started in 1978
• Metro Rail opened in 1985 – 6.4 miles at a total cost
of $535M
• 1992 NFTA deferred any further action to advance
rail extension until a strong local commitment is in
place
8. Strategic Transit
Assessment
• Completed in 2001 by Parsons
Brinkerhoff
• Four planned corridors in the
NFTA’s 1972 rail system plan
• Amherst
• Airport
• Southtowns
• Tonawanda
9. TMD 2010 -Strategic Assessment
•
•
Identified Amherst-Buffalo Corridor as good
candidates for “major transit investment”
based on
– Service effectiveness (productivity)
– Market intensity (population and
employment forecast)
– Development opportunities
– Travel Patterns
– Existing Ridership
Enhanced busing, Bus Rapid Transit, or
Light Rail Extension
10. Why now?
Implementing regional economic development plans:
•WNY Regional Economic Development Council
•Buffalo Billion
•UB 2020
•WNY Sustainability Plan
•One Region Forward/Framework for Regional Growth
•Buffalo Niagara 2050
11. Why now?
$3 billion in development
projects are underway
Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus
Harbor Center
UB Medical School
12. UB 2020
• Connecting the UB physical development plan and
spurring transit oriented development along the
way
13. Why the Amherst
Buffalo Corridor?
• Region’s highest transit
ridership ( >30,000
weekday NFTA)
• Largest concentrations
of:
– Employment
– Population
– University/college
enrollment
14. How are we going to do it?
•
•
•
•
•
Review prior studies
Define purpose, need and opportunities
Look at existing conditions
Identify alternatives
Evaluate alternatives in detail
17. What’s next?
• Spring 2014 – review short list of
alternatives
• Fall 2014 – alternatives evaluation results
• Summer 2015 – present final
recommendations
