Disclaimer

This web site has a number of downloads available in the Adobe Acrobat Reader (PDF) format.  Click on the logo below to download the Reader software directly from the Acrobat website.

Click here to view an Adobe Acrobat Reader version of this document

 

The program described in this transportation plan has recommended what should be done during the next 20 years to upgrade the county's transportation systems in order to serve future travel demand and support urban development. A staging strategy and funding for the recommended plan has been discussed in the previous chapter. The final subject of this report is how to implement the program.

How should be achieved through the use of a management concept. The thrust of such a concept would be twofold: (1) implementation of the recommended program and (2) updating and refinement of the plan. The first item is necessary to provide leadership in a multiple-agency context--agencies that do not now have a unified position on transportation system development. The second is critical because of the likelihood that conditions will change in the future and affect the basis for plan recommendations. These changes will necessitate review and modification (at very short and regular cycles) of the plan.

Management Concept Objectives

In order to conceive of a management concept, it is essential to first set forth objectives for the implementation functions associated with the long-range transportation plan. These would be:

Improve and enhance relations among county government, local units of government, and the private sector. With limited financial resources available to all units of local government, the ability to cooperatively affect the improvement of the county's transportation system will be necessary in order to implement the plan. There will be a very clear need for a strong partnership between the County Highway Department, County Land Use Department, and the Will County Governmental League, and for their linkage with IDOT, ISTHA, Metra, and Pace. Furthermore, with land use decisions driving the majority of future travel patterns, increased cooperation on the impacts of land use decisions is necessary. In those areas where further roadway expansion is unlikely, the ability to involve the private sector in decisions that affect development will be necessary.

Assist the county in monitoring the conditions and assumptions made in developing the plan and the plan implementation. As development takes places, changes in predicted land use will occur that may or may not significantly affect planned investment in the transportation system. By seeking regular input from representatives of municipalities and continuing to take advantage of public opportunities to engage the private sector, the county can better monitor these changes and potentially become pro-active in planning for future transportation facilities.

Create advocacy with regard to federal, state, and regional agencies on transportation issues and funding. The majority of the funding that is available to the county and local municipalities is distributed from the federal or state government. Federal STP funds are initially appropriated by Congress. MFT funds for county, township, and local municipalities are allocated from the state and can be subject to fluctuation, depending on gas use. (See Chapter 7 for descriptions of these funding sources.) The ability to assist the county and local governments in lobbying for maintaining or increasing funding will be of increasing importance in the future. Also of importance will be the ability to help develop public policy on decisions that affect the private sector, such as a consistent or standardized method for conducting traffic impact studies.

Assist in the coordination of transportation improvements between units of government and the private sector. Each year, a myriad of roadway, utility, and railroad improvements are undertaken throughout the county. These projects range from simple resurfacing projects to grade crossing replacements or major roadway expansions. The ability to help highway agencies coordinate their improvements can result in less delay to motorists as well as saving money.

Assist in intergovernmental transportation planning efforts and corridor studies. With municipal boundaries changing as growth takes place, there is a need to conduct subregional or specific area planning studies to look at the net effect of transportation and land use improvements in an area. The ability to coordinate the comprehensive transportation plans of various communities and the county can help to maintain a coordinated and continuous transportation network.

Implementation Management

Using the above-stated objectives, a process must be established by which the recommended transportation program can be managed. The transportation plan would be the initial input to activate the process. The features of this process are as follows:

1. The central function for project implementation is still programming and funding allocation activities, which would be carried out by the same organizations now involved, i.e., Will County Department of Highways, Will County Governmental League (WCGL), South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association (SSMMA), Southwest Council of Mayors (SWCM), Township Highway Commissioners, Regional Transit Authority (and its Metra and Pace service boards), and IDOT.
2. After projects are funded, the actual implementation would be carried out by individual agencies, which would be the project sponsors.
3. Because the plan advocates an enhanced level of multimodal transportation development with improved coordination with land use decisions, there may be a need for a modified or new organizational concept. Currently:

1. The transportation committees of WCGL, SSMMA, and SWCM provide forums for local agency coordination, including participation by regional transportation agencies.
2. The Will County Board Public Works Committee with the Will County Engineer/Highway Department manages implementation associated with the county highway system. The County Engineer also serves on the Public Works Committee as the participating member of the WCGL Transportation Committee.

Each of these committees functions as a work programming group in which the proposed projects of individual organizations are evaluated by the group, with recommendations for funding. For WCGL, SSMMA, and SWCM, project decisions must ultimately become part of the regional Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), as approved the CATS Policy Committee. For the county's Public Works Committee, projects are ultimately approved by the County Board.

The question is whether the above organizations can continue to serve the future situation, with some possible modifications. The answer to this would depend on certain policy-based considerations:

1. In principle, transportation planning has become hierarchical. A regional plan is prepared through the CATS/MPO process. This should serve as a framework for county and local agency plans. For the Will County plan, this relationship has been achieved. County transportation plans are prepared that in turn should serve as a framework for township and municipal plans.
2. Land use planning/development decisions are still the authority of municipal government.  Will County has authority for unincorporated land, but with continued urbanization, the dominant development decisions will be made at the municipal level.
3. Private sector participation should be encouraged in public planning/programming organizations. The future may include more partnering between the public and private sectors to achieve more desirable/sustainable communities, economic development goals, and private sector funding participation and assistance in various advocacies (e.g., promote state level transportation funding bills such as the recently enacted Illinois First program.)

If the recommended Will County transportation plan is to guide transportation decisions across the board in Will County (i.e., intermodally and through multiple jurisdictions), it must be recognized, even formally adopted, by all committees making planning/programming decisions. The challenge will be to ensure that the plan is used not only to guide decisions about county highways, but to enhance and advocate opportunities for all of the other modal elements of the overall plan.

It would be desirable to enhance the function of existing organizations through an adoption of the plan and modification of their operating procedures to address the broader-scale considerations addressed by the plan via its objectives and recommendations. Through the presence of the Will County Engineer on the WCGL Transportation Committee, the continuing leadership for achieving these modifications is in place. Rather than attempting to create new layers of public organization, this approach would be the most practical.

4. The specific modifications in function for the WCGL Transportation Committee would be to consider more countywide issues and interjurisdictional coordination, including the critical coordination between major planning activities such as the corridor councils. The countywide considerations would include:

• System attributes

• Regional connections

• Continuity

• Balance in system capacity and demand

• Equitable quality of service

• Land use and development relationships

• Level of financial investment

• Distribution of benefits/resources

Agreement would be needed among the WCGL participating agencies and would include recognition of this implementation process and a promise to operate within it.

Plan Review

One of the expanded functions of the WCGL Transportation Committee is plan review. This is largely a monitoring process. Essentially, there are three streams of information assembly and analysis that contribute to the process. First, there is the observation of the policy and political situation, which focuses on decisions, agreements, positions, and actions that are taken by any agency that can affect the Will County transportation system. Second and third are technical matters dealing with changes that affect demand (population, employment, development, traffic, and project site conditions) or with changes in financial resources. The process itself is simply the regular gathering and interpretation of information that may lead to changes in the staging element of the transportation plan.

The data collection and analysis should be assigned to the technical staff of one of the coordinating agencies. This could be staff of the Will County Land Use or Highway Department, WCGL, or a participating municipality. Staff would confirm the monitoring work program and budget, collect and analyze data, recommend actions to the committee, and evaluate alternative actions.

The results produced by the analysis activities would lead to one of three decisions:

1. Keep monitoring--no other action.
2. Change the plan.
3. Undertake actions that seek to change conditions that have become barriers, constraints, or problems for the plan (these could be lobbying activities, presentations to gain support for some aspect of the plan, visits to Springfield, etc.).

These processes and procedures should be pursued in a regular and ongoing fashion. This is equivalent to being an "advocate" for the plan. Without this presence, the ability of the plan to guide and coordinate would probably be quickly undermined.

Planning Initiatives

In order to guide ongoing planning and decision-making, a set of planning initiatives is recommended. For the planning period addressed in this plan (2000 to 2020), these initiatives may be equally as important as the improvement projects described in this report. These initiatives are recommended for immediate action. They will require coordinated planning in two dimensions: (1) both land use and transportation planning at the technical level and (2) interagency participation in the fullest sense.

Subarea Analysis

While the WCGL Transportation Committee would have the ability to help the county monitor development and the assumptions and implementation of the plan, the ability for technical staff to develop quantitative relationships is still required. As part of the 2020 Transportation Plan process, a transportation demand model should be developed for Will County, with designated agency staff trained to use the model in helping to maintain the transportation plan. Will County would have the option of retaining a consultant to assist in the modeling work. The computer model would have the capability of assessing the impacts of large developments, or the aggregate effect of numerous small developments, as well as estimating the level of demand on new highway facilities. It should be noted that the intent of this model would be for staff to study small subareas within Will County; it would not have the capabilities of the CATS model employed in the plan evaluation process. The CATS model is regional in nature and involves not only the estimation of travel demand within Will County, but also the demand for the entire six-county Chicago metropolitan area. For example, the ability to forecast the level of travel between Will County and suburban Cook County would be possible through the CATS model, but not the proposed Will County model. As a tool, however, the Will County model could be used as a database to maintain a record of changes in local land use and travel patterns within Will County.

Access Management

Currently, the state, county, and municipalities have access ordinances, regulations, and/or policies. Access management has a significant impact on the efficiency and safety of the road system. This planning initiative would involve the Will County Highway Department and possibly the township highway commissioners in a review of the existing access policy and regulation (on county and township roads) and an assessment of the need for revisions and updates. Consideration of standard approaches across all affected agencies would be included in this review.

Summary

With the rapid growth being experienced in Will County and the limited funding available for roadway improvements, it will be critical to maintain a high level of coordination, cooperation, and planning among the various land use and roadway agencies. The enhancement of the WCGL Transportation Committee to assist the county in this and to help serve as a forum on other transportation issues would be of benefit to the entire county.

In order to initiate the overall implementation approach, a series of actions and decisions are needed, as follows:

1. Formal adoption of the Will County 2020 Transportation Framework Plan by the County Board, plus formal recognition by other regional and local public agencies as the device through which interagency coordination would occur.
2. Enhancement of the WCGL Transportation Committee to assist the county in developing a working relationship between participating agencies for implementation of the plan.
3. Identification of staff person(s) to be the focal point for plan implementation, monitoring activities, etc., and establish budget for activities.
4. Develop detailed work program for monitoring activities.
5. Approval of high-priority program projects, including authorization of design and detailing studies for key new county facilities.
6. Because of the significance of coordinating improvements along the northern Will County line, conduct an interagency meeting for plan coordination purposes with representatives of the City of Aurora, City of Naperville, DuPage County, and Kane County.
7. Develop revised access design standards and policies to be used to guide project design.

ENDNOTES

1. Currently, part of the South Commons Mall parking lot is being leased at this location. This project would provide a permanent location for this facility.