Transportation Enhancement Activities
Guidelines for the Caltrans Share
Adopted by the California Transportation Commission January 1999Published May 1999www.dot.ca.gov/hq/TransEnhAct/
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Technical Assistance: Howard_Reynolds@dot.ca.gov
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Purpose
- Advantage
- Stand-alone TEA Projects
- TEA that Augments Other Projects
- What Qualifies?
A) Direct Relationship to Transportation System
B) Over and Above
C) Within the Categories
SHOPP (State Highway Operation & Protection Program) 3
- Who Can Access Funds?
- Programming Procedures
- Application Process
- Statewide Plan Lists
- Allocation Votes
- Project Manager
- District Programming
- Headquarters Project Management
- Headquarters Budgets
- Headquarters TEA Branch Chief
- Resources for Delivery
- Timeline
About the TEA Program
Introduction
$40 Million dollars will come to Caltrans over the 6-year period of the Transportation Equity Act for the Twenty-first Century. This is a set-aside of Surface Transportation Program funds, and can only be spent on enhancements. Projects must be over and above normal work. A match is required of non-federal transportation funds of 11.5 percent. These are federal funds, and federal rules must be followed, for example, in the environmental document and bid package. (Adding these funds to a state-only funded project will federalize the project.)
Purpose
Advantage
The California Transportation Commission intends that these Transportation Enhancement Activities (TEA) dollars add onto State Highway projects where particular community or environmental enhancement opportunities can be found.
The advantage to using TEA funds is that projects can respond to designer and community desires to go beyond minimum design, thereby building transportation facilities that contribute to communities unique sense of place and that respond to the need for non-motorized infrastructure.
Types of Projects
SHOPP
Who Can Access TEA Funds?
The Caltrans TEA share is available for Caltrans to program.
The Regional Transportation Planning Agencies (RTPAs) are receiving 75 percent of the TEA funds coming into California. The Caltrans share will not be used to supplant regional funds.
RTPAs, counties, cities, non-profit organizations, or citizen groups may request that Caltrans
- fund a TEA project by itself, or
- contribute TEA funds to an RTPA-funded TEA or other transportation project.
Both of these are allowed.
Either Caltrans or another agency may implement the project. When an agency other than Caltrans will be the administering agency, a resolution from the governing body must accompany the application.
Application Process
Note: During the initial call-for-projects in spring 1999, Project Managers submit the TEA Application (a Project Study Report equivalent) for funding consideration. Send applications by may 28, 1999 to:
Howard Reynolds
HQ Landscape Architecture
Mail Station 28
1120 N Street
Sacramento, California 95814
After the initial round of projects programmed off-cycle to the SHOPP deadlines, projects will come forward in two ways:
- During a regular call for SHOPP projects, Project Manager submits a TEA application for a TEA project to augment a normal transportation project. The normal "base project" may reside in the STIP (State Transportation Improvement Program) or SHOPP (State Highway Operation and Protection Program). (For tracking purposes, TEA projects are programmed separately as TEA projects, then construction may be done at the same time as the base project.)
- Projects will be implemented off statewide plan lists.
Programming Procedures
Before Headquarters Programming includes the project in the SHOPP, the Headquarters TEA Branch Chief (the Program Advisor) will approve projects for eligibility and send recommended projects to the District Directors for their consent.
Caltrans TEA projects will be shown project-by-project in the SHOPP (State Highway Operation and Protection Plan). The California Transportation Commission will adopt a slate of SHOPP projects on regular SHOPP cycles. In between, when projects are amended into the SHOPP by Caltrans, the projects will be presented as an information item to the Commission.
Headquarters Programming will set targets for each district after the Fund Estimate is adopted. These are not a guarantee of funds. (Schedule from Mike Callahan goes here.)
Allocation Votes
All TEA projects funded by the Caltrans share, regardless of size, will receive an allocation vote from the Commission.
Roles and Responsibilities
Project Manager
In initial cycle, submit TEA Application. Submit Project Study Report (PSR) for project over $750,000.
Submit Project Report (PR) for project under $750,000.
Complete "Over and Above" TEA Eligibility Assurances Sign-off Sheet (See Appendix for a copy.)
District Programming
The SHOPP will contain a lump sum TEA reservation for major or minor projects. This program will not affect the Districts minor program.
Request allocation vote by California Transportation Commission for construction.
HQ Project Mgt.
Apply the resources. (statewide or project-by-project???- Youmans)
HQ Budgets
Include TEA funds and State match in the fund estimate.
HQ TEA Branch Chief
Review all PSRs for eligibility and deliverability prior to programming. Obtain District Director review of projects, prior to programming.
Resources and Timelines
Resources for Delivery
The $40 million Caltrans share of TEA includes both capital and support dollars. When projects are amended into the SHOPP, the program is updated and resources are finalized.
Timeline
Caltrans will program TEA projects in the normal SHOPP cycle, starting with the 2000 cycle. (Begins Fall 1999.) Before that time, an initial round will be programmed through the amendment process.
Applications for the initial cycle are due May 28, 1999.
Caltrans will develop the statewide plans by summer 1999.
Caltrans will make the initial amendment to the SHOPP in summer 1999.
Appendix A
Transportation Enhancement Activities
Project Scoring
Each project nomination can receive a maximum of 100 points:
up to 60 points in interregional and community enhancement scoring and
up to 40 points in plan-specific scoring.
In the interregional and community enhancement scoring process, all applications are scored by the same point system. For the plan-specific scoring, projects are scored in only one of the four plan list divisions.
The four plan lists are:
1. Bicycle and Pedestrian 40 points
2. Historic Transportation Facilities 40 points
3. Transportation-Related Archaeology 40 points
4. Scenic and Natural Environment 40 points
Total Possible Specific Score (1 Plan List only) 40 points
Scoring is applied to the activities on which the enhancement funds will be spent and on the immediate and direct effects of these activities. For example, future or suspected benefit of the project, not directly a part of the project, will not be subject to scoring.
Interregional and Community Enhancement (60 points)
The project score in this area is derived from the projects primary effects its intent and purpose on the following elements.
a. Benefit to quality-of-life, community, environment. Examples might include provision of safe, aesthetic pedestrian facility at a rail station, removal of billboards on a rural scenic highway, provision for wildlife corridors or migration areas, correction of highway runoff impacts to resources. 0-10 points
b. Increases access to activity centers, such as businesses, schools, recreational areas and shopping areas. Connects or reconnects transportation modes, has multimodal aspects. Reinforces, complements the transportation system, fills deficiency in the system, reestablishes wildlife corridors, reconnects natural drainage or corrects erosion problems impeding access. 0-8 points
c. Implements goals in a transportation plan, or other adopted federal, state, or local plans. Examples might include water quality plans or historic preservation or other elements of general plans, natural community conservation plans. 0-8 points
d. Increases availability, awareness, protection or restoration of historic, community, visual or natural resources. 0-8 points
- Degree of regional or community support. For example, letters of support from local interest groups and public bodies, contribution of funding from Regional Transportation Planning Agency. (No preference will be given to overmatched projects.) 0-8 points
f. Encompasses more than one of the four plan-specific divisions. That is, the project has aspects of other activity-specific plans which would score meritoriously in and of themselves. There will be direct and intended public benefit from these merits; the benefits are not remotely related by function and proximity to the main project activity, or only suspected to occur by the main activity. 0-8 points
Plan-Specific Criteria (40 points)
The Statewide Plan-Specific Criteria are groupings of the 12 activity categories into four divisions with similar characteristics. This is done for the convenience of those who score the proposals. The four groups are not intended to affect the distribution of funds, nor to be anything other than a convenience in the scoring process.
A proposal can score in only one of the four Plan Lists.
The project score in each activity-specific division is designed to compensate for inability to score in other specific groups. It is not a way to double-count benefits.
1. Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan List (40 points)
This division encompasses:
Category 1: Provision of facilities for pedestrians and bicycles
Category 2: Provision of safety and educational activities for pedestrians and bicyclists
Category 8: Preservation of abandoned railway corridors (including the conversion or use thereof for pedestrian or bicycle trails)
Need for proposed facilities: shortage of bicycle or pedestrian facilities; missing link in connecting the intermodal system, importance of link; Necessity of proposed facilities to serve the system:
High 10 - 20 points
Medium 5 - 10 points
Low 0 - 5 points
Degree proposed project meets needs or addresses opportunities for bicycle or pedestrian facilities:
High 10 - 20 points
Medium 5 - 10 points
Low 0 - 5 points
2. Historic Transportation Facilities Plan List (40 points)
This division encompasses:
Category 3: Acquisition of historic sites
Category 4: Historic highway programs
Category 6: Historic preservation
Category 7: Rehabilitation and operation of historic transportation buildings, structures or facilities (including historic railroad facilities and canals)
Category 12: Archaeological planning and research.
Current recognized level of historic significance (federal, state, or local):
High 10 - 20 points
Medium 5 - 10 points
Low 0 - 5 points
Degree project activity will enhance, preserve, or protect the historic/archaeological resource:
High 10 - 20 points
Medium 5 - 10 points
Low 0 - 5 points
3. Transportation-Related Archaeology Plan List (40 points)
This division encompasses:
Category 3: Acquisition of historic sites (archaeological)
Category 10: Archaeological planning and research
Current recognized level of historic significance (federal, state, or local):
High 10 - 20 points
Medium 5 - 10 points
Low 0 - 5 points
Degree project activity will enhance, preserve, or protect the historic/archaeological resource:
High 10 - 20 points
Medium 5 - 10 points
Low 0 - 5 points
3. Scenic and Natural Environment Plan list (40 points)
This division encompasses:
Category 2: Acquisition of scenic easements and scenic sites
Category 4: Scenic highway programs (including tourist and welcome center facilities)
Category 5: Landscaping and other scenic beautification
Category 9: Control and removal of outdoor advertising.
Category 11: Environmental mitigation to address water pollution due to highway runoff or reduce vehicle-caused wildlife mortality while maintaining habitat connectivity.
Degree to which scenic or aesthetic resources are rare, unique, or significant; degree to which potential for enhancement exists for landscaping or scenic beautification; protecting or reestablishing wildlife corridor, level of damage caused by highway runoff, current degree of visual blight:
High 10 - 20 points
Medium 5 - 10 points
Low 0 - 5 points
Degree to which project will preserve, rehabilitate or develop scenic or aesthetic resource, or solves wildlife connectivity or highway runoff problem:
High 10 - 20 points
Medium 5 - 10 points
Low 0 - 5 points
