29 Sep
1999
29 Sep
'99
11:24 a.m.
Chris:
I believe that Caltrans (California Department of Transportation)
will be building any new statewide travel analysis zones on
MPO-defined zones in our metropolitan areas; and census tracts in
non-metropolitan areas. This should be adequate for purposes of
developing a statewide TAZ system. <The 4,000 census zones I've
defined in my region of 6.8 million people, will probably be
collapsed to about 300 statewide TAZes by Caltrans.>
On the other hand, it may prove useful to request block group level
TAZes in non-metro counties. If I were the county planner in Lake
County (the non-metro county just north of my Napa County in Calif.)
I would much prefer to get CTPP data at the block group level than
tract level (this assumes the absence of TAZes for non-metro
counties!)
I would hope that the default option for Statewide TAZes are
finer-grained than counties!! That doesn't make sense to me.
My recommendation would be to monitor the TAZ development in your
MPOs; then tally up the number of census tracts and block groups in
each of your counties. Depending on the level of detail, and the
needs of your local non-metro county planners, decide on either
tracts or block groups. Either that, or define TAZes on a
block-by-block basis for your entire state. That sounds like a six
person month effort to be completed in 30 days from today....
I'm uncertain about the rules established by the Census Bureau, but I
believe they're only going to allow one set of TAZes for each county.
So, in metropolitan counties, it's apparently up to the MPO and State
DOT to negotiate the finest-grained system that meets or exceeds the
needs of both <I should be corrected if I'm wrong.>
cheers,
Chuck Purvis, MTC
What are other states doing with updating their TAZs
in preparation
for the 2000 census? It is my understanding that if a state does
not submit a TAZ update the counties will be used as TAZs for CTPP
purposes.
The type of data we would be interested in at this point would be
journey to work trips for county to county, city to city, and city
to county. We do not currently have a statewide model but are
interested in possible looking into the benefits of building one.
Please inform me on what direction we should take.
Chris Herrick, P.E.
Statewide Planning Engineer
Kansas Department of
Transportation
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e-mail: cpurvis(a)mtc.ca.gov
Chuck Purvis, AICP
Senior Transportation Planner/Analyst, Planning Section
Metropolitan Transportation Commission
101 Eighth Street, Oakland, CA 94607-4700
(510) 464-7731 (voice) (510) 464-7848 (fax)
WWW: http://www.mtc.ca.gov/
MTC DataMart: http://www.mtc.ca.gov/datamart/
MTC FTP Site: ftp://ftp.abag.ca.gov/pub/mtc/planning/
Personal WWW: http://home.earthlink.net/~clpurvis/
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