Purpose of this report


PREVIOUS COORDINATION WITH PUBLIC HEALTH PARTNERS



Download 150.42 Kb.
Page2/7
Date20.10.2016
Size150.42 Kb.
#5141
TypeReport
1   2   3   4   5   6   7

PREVIOUS COORDINATION WITH PUBLIC HEALTH PARTNERS


PSRC has worked with State and local partners to define and expand its involvement in health issues which has evolved over time. In the past, PSRC has focused on the health issues of safety considerations in modeling and congestion management, air quality conformity, and greenhouse gas emissions as a State priority for climate change. More recently, PSRC began to focus on the promotion of active living through greater emphasis on bicycle and pedestrian planning with a strong connection to access to transit and equitable access to jobs and housing in response to emphases in VISION 2040 and Transportation 2040 (the region’s long-range transportation plan) and interest by MPO leadership in health and transportation benefits.

PSRC views health as an evolving topic in transportation planning. PSRC has been able to successfully document health and transportation connections, integrating health into policy-level documents, and begin to integrate health into considerations for implementation.



PUBLIC HEALTH PARTNERSHIPS

PSRC’s activities around health have been supported by local county public health departments. Public Health - Seattle & King County (PHSKC) has had the longest involvement with PSRC, beginning with land use, transportation, air quality, and health (LUTAQH) and a 2004 health issue paper developed to inform the 2008 long range transportation plan (LRTP) update and related policy document. Beginning in 2010, PHSKC has been joined by the Kitsap County Health District, Snohomish Health District, and Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department.

The four agencies have partnered in an effort to improve regional public health representation on several PSRC groups, including the Growth Management Policy Board. The group also meets quarterly and has developed a talking points document on public health issues related to land use and transportation, which encompasses air quality and climate change, healthy eating, active living, affordable healthy housing, equity, and safe and injury free transportation. Representing different regions and operating within different political circumstances, the four health agencies have found they are better able to represent the region when working together.

Members of the public health partnership report that their interest in PSRC is a result of a shift in their agencies’ overall approach to improving health. Previously, much of the focus was on individual behavior change to improve health, but that has now shifted to policies, environments, and systems that support decisions to incorporate healthy behaviors into daily life (e.g., improving access to healthy foods; making walking to school safe, fun, and convenient). The public health community also shares PSRC’s interest in the co-benefits for health, environment, and economic development from addressing transportation issues such as congestion, mode share, and transit investments. For example, reducing congestion and shifting mode share away from single occupancy vehicle (SOV) to transit, walking and bicycling can:



  • Improve air quality which reduces rates of heart disease, asthma and stroke,

  • Increase physical activity, which reduces rates of obesity and heart disease, and

  • Reduce polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and other toxics from vehicles, which end up in local waterways, fish, and shellfish.

PSRC has strong partners in the four county public health departments, which are represented by staff in the following PSRC groups:

  • Growth Management Policy Board

  • Transportation 2040 Prioritization Working Group

  • Regional Staff Committee

  • Regional Food Policy Council

  • Regional Project Evaluation Committee

  • Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee

  • Central Puget Sound Growing Transit Communities Consortium, including:

      • Growing Transit Communities Oversight Committee

      • Equity Network Steering Committee

      • Corridor Task Forces

      • Northgate and Tacoma Catalyst Project Working Groups

  • VISION 2040 Monitoring Committee

For the Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee, a PHSKC staff member served as chair and vice-chair between 2008 and 2012. The BPAC public health partners still remain active members of this committee.

TRANSPORTATION


TRANSPORTATION POLICY BOARD

Transportation 2040 Framework

The Transportation Policy Board (TPB) includes representatives of the PSRC’s member jurisdictions and regional business, labor, civic and environmental groups. The TPB meets monthly to advise the Executive Board on key transportation issues. These representatives include League of Women’s Voters, Washington Bikes and the Transportation Choices Coalition.

TRANSPORTATION 2040

Transportation 2040, adopted in 2010 and updated in 2014, is the region’s long range multimodal transportation plan and an implementation component of VISION 2040. Transportation 2040 focuses on providing mobility to a growing region while improving the region’s environmental health and economy. When the plan was updated in 2014, a number of ongoing and statutorily required updates were made – including a new Active Transportation Plan, an updated Coordinated Transit - Human Services Transportation Plan, and an updated Regional Transportation Demand Management Action Plan. Health and equity have become a larger focus through the promotion of active living through greater emphasis on bicycle and pedestrian planning with a strong connection to access to transit and equitable access to jobs and housing. Updated forecasts and analysis tools were used to ensure that the plan analysis is based upon the most current information. Most significantly, the Transportation 2040 financial strategy has been updated to reflect the effects of the economic downturn and corresponding reduction of transportation revenues. The plan also includes a regional freight strategy, a regional air quality analysis and a rural transportation study.



NEXT STRATEGIC ENTRY POINT: Fall 2015/ Winter 2016 – T2040 Scoping

PSRC is embarking upon an effort to create a new metropolitan transportation plan for 2018. This effort would be a good place to ensure that health and equity are considered as part of the planning process.




(Expand area as needed to provide feedback)

HEALTH AND EQUITY PARTNERS INPUT:


TRANSIT PLANNING AND COORDINATION, SPECIAL NEEDS

PSRC incorporates planning for “special needs” transportation populations (e.g., individuals with disabilities, seniors, youth, and low-income populations) into every day planning activities. PSRC has a standing committee addressing special needs, the Special Needs Transportation Committee (SNTC) which meets 10 times per year. The SNTC membership includes representatives of organizations that address special needs transportation populations and transportation needs of those groups. In addition, the SNTC provides direct representation on both the Transportation Operators Committee (TOC) –PSRC’s staff committee addressing areas of common concern for both long-range and short-range planning for the public transportation operators in the central Puget Sound region; and on the Regional Staff Committee (RSC). In addition, PSRC staff attends county special needs transportation coalition meetings for the four counties in this region one- to two-times per year, providing needed outreach to groups that are unable to make it to a meeting at PSRC.

In terms of planning activity, Transportation 2040 currently contains a robust increase in local transit service (more than 100% increase in service hours between 2006-2040) and completion of the Sound Transit regional high capacity transit spine. These outcomes within T2040 are directly related to health and equity in the region. In addition, the incorporation of PSRC’s Coordinated Transit-Human Services Transportation Plan as part of T2040, as well as incorporation of elements of other relevant efforts, such as the Opportunity Mapping project, into the transit and special needs transportation planning process also relate to how PSRC current addresses health and equity in the planning process for these topics.

NEXT STRATEGIC ENTRY POINT: Fall 2015/ Winter 2016 – T2040 Scoping

The next opportunity to plug in on transit planning is the scoping work in preparation for the update of T2040 in 2018 that will encompass an update of the region’s vision for transit, how transit meets the goals of the region in multiple areas, including health and equity, and will result in several functional updates, including but not limited to the update of the future transit network for the region.




(Expand area as needed to provide feedback)

HEALTH AND EQUITY PARTNERS INPUT:

ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION

The region developed a new Active Transportation Plan as part of the Transportation 2040 update that serves not only to emphasize local and regional options for active and healthy transportation opportunities, it also serves as a tool for data collection recommendations, for emphasis on regional bicycle connections across jurisdictional boundaries and also includes information for local planning options and tools for how to incorporate health into local plans. This work has invigorated the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee which has hit the ground running to implement this plan in terms of local education and outreach, data collection and also to seek additional funds for bicycle and pedestrian facilities. This committee has also made great strides in terms of developing partnerships with health organizations. The former chair of the BPAC is a representative of public health and served as a combination of chair/ vice-chair for four years. The BPAC also has other members of public health and advocacy organizations in regular attendance.

NEXT STRATEGIC ENTRY POINT: Fall 2015/ Winter 2016 – T2040 Scoping

As the region moves forward to update the Transportation 2040 plan in 2018, some elements to the Active Transportation plan will be updated such as the development of targets that align with the MAP 21 performance measures as well as updating data and best practices.

Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee Meetings: Meets every fourth Wednesday of each month, 10am - noon


(Expand area as needed to provide feedback)

HEALTH AND EQUITY PARTNERS INPUT:


TRANSPORTATION 2040 PERFORMANCE TRENDS

The T2040 Performance Trends program is intended to focus efforts on evaluating the performance and implementation of the long-range plan as well as address new federal requirements regarding performance based planning measures and targets. The T2040 Performance Trends program is using the VISION 2040 model identifying outcomes and corresponding performance and implementation measures. Performance measure areas include: Environment, Health, Equity, Safety, Security, Mobility, Finance and Maintenance and Preservation.

See the draft performance trends attachment that lists proposed trends related to health and equity.

NEXT STRATEGIC ENTRY POINT:


  • The first set of Transportation 2040 performance measures will be released as a pilot in late 2014.

  • The rest of the measures will be completed throughout 2015.

These measures were developed in coordination with the Transportation Monitoring Program Ad Hoc Committee and with additional outreach to other PSRC committees. While the ad-hoc committee no longer meets, opportunity to make comments on these measures is still open for additional feedback. Refinements to measures will be based on new data sources, new suggestions or methods particularly in areas where there are very few measures. Throughout 2014-2015 there will be opportunity to further refine measures ensuring we have the best available data and accurate analysis. As data for these measures are available, transportation staff will cycle back to the various PSRC advisory committees by topic. Contact: Stephanie Rossi, 206-971-3054


(Expand area as needed to provide feedback)

HEALTH AND EQUITY PARTNERS INPUT:

PRIORITIZATION

The Transportation Policy Board (TPB) tasked PSRC to develop a process to prioritize future investments in the long range transportation plan (LRTP) as part of the plan update (completed in May 2014) and consistent with VISION 2040. A subset of the TPB convened as a working group for two years to develop a prioritization process using a set of nine measures based on VISION 2040 policies. Although health was not included as its own measure, PSRC worked with its members and public health partners to incorporate health into the definition of several measures, in particular travel, air quality, and Puget Sound land and water. The intent of the measures is to serve as a scorecard that is accessible for both the public and decision-makers. Local and preservation projects were considered high priority so the scorecard was reserved for the larger transportation projects on regional facilities explicitly identified in the LRTP. By including quantitative and qualitative measures, the reported information enables consideration of factors (including health) that are not included in the PSRC model and benefit-cost analysis results.

Prioritization is a decision-making tool rather than a funding tool. During the T2040 update, this tool was used to help balance the financial strategy. Future purposes for prioritization will be discussed by the TPB at a later date.



NEXT STRATEGIC ENTRY POINT:

As the regional policy boards move forward to updating the next regional transportation plan in 2018, they will also decide how prioritization should be refined and for what purpose. These decisions will be made as part of the scoping period for the next plan update which will occur during the Fall 2015/ Winter 2016.




(Expand area as needed to provide feedback)

HEALTH AND EQUITY PARTNERS INPUT:


SHORT RANGE PLANNING & FEDERAL FUNDING COMPETITIONS

Health and equity are incorporated into the Transportation Improvement Program and PSRC’s federal funding competitions in several ways: 



  • The regional project evaluation criteria for PSRC’s federal funding competition addresses health through the reduction of emissions and the provision of active transportation opportunities, as well as accessibility to transit.  Health is also addressed in the criteria through safety elements. 

  • Equity is included in the criteria through the specific elements of populations served by a competing project – those populations identified in the President’s Order for Environmental Justice, but also seniors, people with disabilities and areas with high levels of unemployment levels or chronic underemployment. 

  • An Environmental Justice analysis is also conducted on the full list of projects in a given 4-year Transportation Improvement Program, including all projects with funding in the region during that timeframe.  This analysis looks at trends in projects by location and type as compared to the region’s demographic profile.

NEXT STRATEGIC ENTRY POINT:

The Transportation Policy Board will begin to get engaged early in 2015 for the 2016 project selection process; the committees will work through 2015 on recommendation on the process and criteria; the Board will reengage prior to the final decision making in January 2016. There are many opportunities over the course of 2015, and we can work with our committees and the Board to make sure this outreach to other interested parties is held.




(Expand area as needed to provide feedback)

HEALTH AND EQUITY PARTNERS INPUT:


TRANSPORTATION 2040 – A LOOK AT REGIONAL EQUITY

When PSRC developed and adopted Transportation 2040, it included an environmental justice summary which describes how the updated Transportation 2040 affects low-income and minority residents, as well as other vulnerable populations. In addition to considering how Transportation 2040 affects minority residents and people with low-incomes, PSRC makes a special effort to address how this plan affects special needs populations. This summary includes excerpts from this report. For the full Environmental Justice Summary, see Appendix G of the T2040 Update materials on the PSRC website.




Environmental justice means that people with low-incomes and minority residents benefit from public investments and do not shoulder the negative effects disproportionately. Negative effects can include disruptions to communities, restricted access to publicly-funded facilities, safety concerns, higher exposures to hazardous materials, increased noise levels, and increased water and air pollution. Environmental justice also involves developing transportation projects that benefit low-income or minority communities. Effective environmental justice emphasizes ways to involve affected communities throughout a transportation project’s development.




2010 census data was used to update population and employment forecasts for low-income, minority, limited-English proficient, special needs, and other vulnerable residents and a few big changes are worth noting:

  • Minority residents now make up a larger share of the population of the total regional population (31% in 2010 up from 24% in 2000). King and Snohomish counties experienced especially large growth.

  • Low-income and very low-income populations have also expanded in all four counties during the last decade. The combined percentage for both groups climbed from 21% in 1999 to about 23% in 2010; with each group’s share of the total population rising by about a percentage point overall.

  • People with special needs also make up a larger share of the region’s total population, up from 44% in 2008 to 47% in 2011. In 2011, people with low income comprised 24%, youth comprised 16%, the elderly represented 11%, and people with disabilities made up 11% of the region’s total population.

Changes in the Transportation 2040 Update may have effect on low-income, minority, and vulnerable populations in the following ways:

  • The updated Transportation 2040 results in fewer regional greenhouse gas emissions, which may be of particular value to low-income and minority communities that have experienced adverse environmental impacts in the past. It also continues to meet all regional air quality requirements.

  • The new Active Transportation plan addresses more active and healthy transportation opportunities, identifies a regional bicycle network and provides resources for local active transportation planning and implementation.

  • The new Rural Transportation Study elevates the transportation needs of the region’s rural residents, which include some low-income, minority, and special needs populations

  • The Coordinated Transit-Human Services Transportation Plan provides updated information on special needs populations and identifies how the region can better address their transportation needs.

  • The Transportation 2040 Update reflects cost-saving measures taken by local transit agencies and Sound Transit. Some of these recent service changes could have negatively affected low-income and vulnerable residents if they resulted in a reduction to local transit service in low-income neighborhoods or delay light rail expansion.

  • However, the plan still includes the doubling transit service by 2040 and investing in paratransit and transportation for residents with special needs.

  • In the Transportation 2040 Update, some projects—including bicycle and pedestrian trails—no longer have a funding strategy to complete construction. Planning for these projects can continue, however, and they will move forward to construction as funding becomes available.

As part of PSRC’s continuing public involvement and outreach, a focused effort was conducted to inform Title VI, Environmental Justice, and Special Needs populations about what has changed as part of the Transportation 2040 update. A full list of meetings and organizations that were part of the T2040 public outreach effort can be found in the Transportation 2040 Update Final Report on page 59. This outreach included contacts from the Regional Equity Network (discussed later in this document).

NEXT STRATEGIC ENTRY POINT: Fall 2015/ Winter 2016 – T2040 Scoping


(Expand area as needed to provide feedback)

HEALTH AND EQUITY PARTNERS INPUT:



Download 150.42 Kb.

Share with your friends:
1   2   3   4   5   6   7




The database is protected by copyright ©ininet.org 2024
send message

    Main page