RE: [CTPP] Adjusted Urbanized Area

The official population that FHWA is required to use for making the apportionment of STP attributable funds is the official Census UZA numbers. The adjusted urbanized / smoothed boundaries do not make any difference for that apportionment. Another question from Washington asked if FHWA were going to allow adjusted UZAs. The 23 USC Section 101 definition of urban area refers to "...urbanized areas or urban place as designated by the Bureau of the Census....within boundaries to be fixed by responsible State and local officals in cooperation with each other subject to approval by the Secretary." This allows adjusted UZAs but does not require it. If they are done by the local area, then they do need an approval by FHWA and FTA. The metropolitan planning boundaries, UZA plus 20 years of growth, are still defined by the MPOs and States without an approval from FHWA and FTA. Ben Williams, P.E. Metropolitan Planning Specialist Federal Highway Administration Southern Resource Center V (404) 562-3671 F (404) 562-3700 ben.williams(a)fhwa.dot.gov Web Site www.fhwa.dot.gov/resourcecenters/southern I have to add one more question to my previous list: should the state consider the population of revised/adjusted urbanized area for STP-UZA allocation? It (the Adjusted UZA) might be strictly for HPMS purpose only as most would suggest. Thank you everyone. I am sending this also to the MPO List - as some MPO experts may shed some more light on the practice. (for those on the MPO list: my original question was to do with: the State with co-operation from the MPOs shall fix urbanized area boundaries (smoothing out is the term used often) - for HPMS or other purposes). Following responses are self-explanatory. Viplav Putta INCOG ---------------------------------------- Nancy: I got the following responses on the issue of smoothing, which may help others (-VP): --------------------------------------------- Glen Ahlert [gahlert(a)swfrpc.org] The only guidance available from FHWA on this dates from 1991, and still contains a number of obsolete references. It will also leave a lot of your questions unanswered, I suspect. You can download it at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov//////legsregs/directives/fapg/g406300.htm. You might also want to talk to Bob Diogo (bdiogo(a)swfrpc.org) in this office, who has been trying to develop smoothed urbanized area and urban cluster boundaries for this area, about what he has learned and how he's gone about it. ----------------------------------------------- John Coil [jcoil(a)drcog.org] The FHWA requirement for smoothing urbanized areas (or creating transportation urban areas) was focused as an MPO function in 1975, 1983 and 1992. The MPOs needed to define the transportation urban areas and then the urban and rural functional classification to determine which roads were eligible for federal-aid secondary (rural) and federal-aid urban (urban) funding based on the 1974 Federal-aid Highway Act. The MPOs paid little attention to the HPMS data reporting requirements. With the advent of ISTEA in 1992, the need for transportation urban areas declined to just billboard locations, HPMS data reporting and speed limit controls. Since, the Census urbanized boundary now controls billboard locations and the speed controls have been removed. The only remaining need for transportation urban area definitions is the HPMS data reporting requirement. BUT, I think FHWA and many MPOs would like to have a consistent set of transportation urban areas for mapping and other planning functions. I do not know about the MPO interests in Oklahoma, but Denver MPO has no real interest in the urbanized/ transportation urban data reporting. We need data by the TMA to meet our Congressional transportation planning requirements. The 1990 Clean Air Act and ISTEA changed the geography we use in our planning and air quality conformity process. It is too bad that FHWA did not immediately change the HMPS data reporting requirements to match federal law. ---------------------------------------------------------- Mitchell, Steve R. [Steve.Mitchell(a)ahtd.state.ar.us] Go to the following link (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/census/faqa2cdt.htm#20 ) for information and contacts on the urbanized area boundary smoothing. It was a very big deal after the 1990 Census and ISTEA because there was a nation-wide functional reclassification of the entire roadway network. Back then there was guidance and workshops to help with the process. The FHWA Division offices (states) are now responsible for assisting the states and the information given out is very fragmented and confusing for everyone, not just those who haven't done it before. The information I have has never given a finite limit to the amount of adjustment...just that everyone involved must agree that it is reasonable. The smoothing affects what is classified as urban and rural by the State and Federal government which affects many things they do and could affect funding. The smoothing may be done for all areas classified as urban, not just urbanized areas above 200,000 population. The smoothing is supposed to be done in cooperation with the MPO in large areas. Make suggestions to your DOT as you think appropriate to make data management easier -----------------------------------------------------