Title: CENSUS DATA IN DEVELOPING NEW TOOLS FOR CAPITAL DISTRICT TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE NEW VISIONS PROCESS
Abstract: The Capital District Transportation Committee (CDTC) is the designated metropolitan planning organization (MPO) for the four counties that include the Albany-Schenectady-Troy (New York) Urbanized Area. In its three-year effort, New Visions, to produce its next regional transportation plan, CDTC has relied upon guidance from the nine task forces of subject-specific stakeholders. Subjects such as land use impacts of transportation policy have taken center stage in the New Visions discussions and have required development or refinement of existing analytic procedures, each with its own data demands. In this work, census information has served a valuable role alongside other data sources in supporting new analytical capabilities. Among a wide range of census data applications, three analytical developments that employ census material warrant particular attention. First, to explore major transit investment possibilities, the CDTC staff developed and calibrated a sophisticated mode choice model in a short amount of time by combining available census demographic and journey-to-work information with Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey data, local household travel survey data, and transit on-board survey information. Second, to support examinations of alternative land use and transportation policies, the CDTC staff used time-series census data along with other information to develop and calibrate a land use pivot model. Third, to allow statistical comparison of community indicators among groups of communities (central cities, villages and small cities, inner suburbs, outer suburbs, rural areas), the CDTC staff packaged readily available census information with other information into a documentation of Community Quality of Life. These applications are representative of the value of census information in supporting the demands of innovative planning exercises.
Publication Year: 1997
Publication Date: 1997-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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