The 2014 FORA Capital Improvement Program Review – Phase III report acknowledges the need to revisit the 2005 FORA Fee Reallocation Study to assess the validity of the transportation obligations required by the Fort Ord Base Reuse Plan. This prompted the Fort Ord Reuse Authority to request a coordinated work effort with the Transportation Agency for the purposes of reviewing, analyzing, and adjusting the fiscal and physical transportation network obligations defined in the Base Reuse Plan as appropriate. As part of this combined effort, the Transportation Agency has agreed to assume project management of the FORA Fee Reallocation Update.
After a competitive bidding process, Kimley-Horn was selected to conduct the technical analysis for the fee reallocation study. This work included reviewing and updating the land use assumptions in the FORA area that may have changed since the initial 2005 fee study; re-validating the Association of Monterey Bay Area Government's Regional Travel Demand Model to ensure that the results of the modeling are accurate within a range as required by Caltrans; reviewing and modifying the future transportation network assumptions to cover three scenarios - No Build, Build Current Capital Improvement Program, and Build Alternative Capital Improvement Program; performing a deficiency analysis to identify future roadway impacts from proposed developments within FORA; and finally, re-allocating the fee based on the results of the deficiency analysis.
During this process, Agency staff, FORA staff, and Kimley-Horn also gave numerous presentations to the Fort Ord Reuse Authority's Administrative Committee as well as the Cities of Marina and Seaside to discuss potential alterations to the FORA Capital Improvement Program. The comments and feedback received from these meetings have been incorporated into the report.
Traffic congestion is measured on an A through F level of service scale, in which A is a barely used road, and F is gridlock. The analysis looked at a Build 2015 Capital Improvement Program, a Build Alternative and No Build scenario and the resulting future traffic congestion under each. The results of the No Build scenario shows that by 2035 if FORA does not build the FORA Capital Improvement Program transportation projects, seven of the existing roadways in the current FORA project list will operate at deficient levels (Levels of Service E or F). If FORA completes the Capital Improvement Program transportation projects (Build 2015 or Build Alternative scenario), the study roadways would operate at acceptable levels of service (Levels of Service D or better).
The Build 2015 CIP scenario includes the the widening of Highway 1 between Fremont Boulevard and Del Monte as a regional project. However, due to costs and other constraints of widening Highway 1, a Build Alternative scenario with enhanced transit was also considered as an alternative to highway widening. Conceptual transit improvements analyzed in this scenario included Bus-On-Shoulder operations along Highway 1 and enhanced transit service to carry traffic that would otherwise be accommodated by Highway 1 widening.
Rather than completely eliminating the highway widening project, the FORA Administrative Committee recommended a hybrid Build Alternative that redefined the project to include Highway 1 Corridor Improvements ranging from highway widening, to enhanced transit, and interchange/intersection improvements.
The analysis shows that the FORA Capital Improvement Program provides sufficient capacity in the roadway network to address future growth-related transportation deficiencies under both the Build and Build Alternative scenarios. Based on these findings, the draft report makes a recommendation to confirm the Build transportation network network with the following changes:
- Broaden the description of “regional” project R3a widening Highway 1 between Fremont Boulevard and Del Monte Boulevard to be renamed as Highway 1 Corridor improvements and include new enhanced transit improvements and service (Bus on Shoulder or Monterey Branch Line Bus Rapid Transit, and Local Monterey-Salinas Transit Service), and improvements to the Highway 1 – Fremont Boulevard Interchange in Seaside; and
- At the request of the City of Marina, include the 2nd Avenue Extension in the FORA Capital Improvement Program, redistributing funds from the other road projects in the City of Marina.
Included with this draft report is an updated estimate of the cost of the FORA obligations to the projects listed in the Build 2015 CIP scenario (shown as Exhibit 25). This table shows two key pieces of information: 1) the results of the deficiency analysis with the percentage of new trips attributable to new development on the studied roadway network; and 2) the reallocation of FORA obligations for each project within the Base Reuse Plan $114.2 million funding cap.
The draft report recommends using this technical information as the starting point for updating the FORA Capital Improvement Program obligations, recognizing that further adjustments could be made at the discretion of the FORA. Since the FORA Community Facilities District fee is a Mello-Roos tax and not a traffic impact fee, the FORA Board has discretion to reassign fee revenues among the transportation projects. Previously, the FORA Board policy has been to fund the onsite projects at 100% and distribute the remainder of the funding among the "regional" and "off-site" projects ("Local-first approach"). While the local-first approach results generally in less funding available to mitigate the cumulative traffic impacts addressed by the regional and off-site projects, at the request of the FORA Administrative committee, the report created a local-first option B.