Zia,
Here in South Dakota, we are in the process of adjusting our existing FHWA
adjusted urban area boundaries to incorporate the 2000 Census Bureau
boundaries for all of our cities over 5000 population. Since we also
haven't seen anything other than the proposals out on FHWA's website, we are
assuming that Chapter 4 (Urban Area Boundaries) from the 1991 FHWA
Federal-Aid Policy Guide is still valid for use in functional
classification, HPMS data reporting and funding distributions for FY2003.
While I have the soapbox, I'll paraphrase the discussion's we have had with
our MPO's on the Census urban boundary issue. With the Census Bureau's new
boundary determination procedure being based upon population density, the
new census urban boundary is designed to show where urban dwelling people
live and not necessarily where they work or shop. In areas where the land
uses are more spread out & separated, like in our state, this leads to the
2000 Census urban boundary omitting large portions of the industrial &
commercial areas that are located on the edges of the city. For counting
people where they live (which is one of their primary jobs), the Census
Bureau's procedure works fine. However, from a transportation system
viewpoint, to go exclusively with the Census Bureau's boundary would exclude
a large portion of the transportation related urban area, which needs to not
only include the areas of where people live, but also where people work and
transportation systems that the connect those areas. In light of this, we
feel that the Census urban boundary is to be used as the base for the FHWA
adjusted urban area boundary but not exclusively as the boundary.
Maintaining the 1991 guidelines to accomplish this would be acceptable to
us.
Steven Gramm, P.E.
Data Analysis Engineer / Engineering Supervisor
SDDOT - Planning & Programs
700 E. Broadway
Pierre, SD 57501
(605)773-6641
Steve.gramm(a)state.sd.us <mailto:Steve.gramm@state.sd.us>
-----Original Message-----
From: Kazimi, Zia [mailto:zkazimi@state.mt.us]
Sent: Monday, July 01, 2002 5:40 PM
To: Ctpp-news
Subject: [CTPP] FAQ's
I was wondering how other states are dealing with FHWA's
quazi-official (all
I've seen are the FAQ's on their website) implementation
guidelines applying
2000 Census data to urban areas. I haven't seen anything
from FHWA similar
to what the US Bureau of Census put out in the March 15,
2002 Federal
Register.
Are we to assume that these Internet site FAQ's take
precedence over what
currently exists under USC Title 23? FHWA guidelines have
been known to
change depending on public input. The bottom line is, we
need to start
identifying our urban boundaries (deadlines are coming up -
e.g. HPMS) and
yet, I don't believe we have a clear mandate on how to
proceed. Is this
just a backdoor approach without going through a formal
process or am I
missing something?
I would appreciate any thoughts on this. Thanks.
Zia Kazimi
Urban Planning
Montana Department of Transportation
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