Tuesdays at APA–DC — October 2011

Congestion Management

October 25, 2011

Traffic congestion continues to challenge urban areas, resulting in wasted fuel, time, and costs to the economy. Efforts to address congestion in urban areas are one of the primary demands on transportation funding.

The federally required Congestion Management Process (CMP) for metropolitan areas with populations over 200,000 creates a solid framework for addressing congestion within the transportation planning process. While historically these efforts were often viewed simply as a data analysis exercise or report to identify capacity needs, the CMP is intended to be an on-going process, fully integrated into the metropolitan transportation planning process, addressing regional goals and objectives and multimodal system performance needs.

In this session, Michael Grant of ICF International will discuss the new Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) guidebook on the CMP, highlighting key elements of the process, and the broader links between congestion management, livability, and multimodal system performance.

About the Speaker

Michael Grant is a principal at ICF International with over 17 years of experience in transportation and environmental planning, policy, and economics. He has managed multidimensional projects for the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), state and local transportation agencies, and other governments and organizations. His work focuses broadly on advancing sustainable transportation decision-making, with emphasis on transportation demand management (TDM) and other strategies to improve air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and support community livability. He has provided training and technical assistance to state DOTs, metropolitan planning organizations, and other agencies on topics such as advancing planning for operations, congestion management, transportation air quality conformity, climate change mitigation, performance measurement, and program evaluation. He previously worked as an economist at the U.S. Department of Transportation and as a planner at the Maryland State Highway Administration.