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July 1998 (Seattle, WA) - Meeting Minutes
A1A06: Transportation and Economic Development,
Seattle, WA, Monday, 13 July, 1998, 3:15 PM
1. Introductions
Chairman Norman Foster called the meeting to order at approximately 3:30 PM. He opened the meeting by asking each of those in attendance to introduce him/herself. The following committee members were present: Randall Eberts, Patti Ellis, Ralph Erickson, David Forkenbrock, Norman Foster, James Gillespie, Shirley Loveless, Judy Perkins, Wayne Placide, Farideh Ramjerdi, Glen Weisbrod, TRB: Jon Williams. The following committee friends and others were present: Loyd Henion, Sondip Mathur, Marion Poole, Mike Lipsman, Stacey Bricka, Brian Ziegler, Burton Clifton and Norm Weustefeld. Jon Williams and Ken Opiela, representing TRB, attended the latter part of the meeting.
[Doug Lee of Volpe Center, Norm Wuestefeld of Wilbur Smith Associates, and Venky Shankar, of Washington State DOT have joined A1A06 as friends.]
2. World Cup Recap
As Jim Scott of the TRB staff was absent, the World Cup recap and analysis was skipped.
3. Minutes from Annual Meeting 1998
Norman announced that copies of the minutes of the committee's meeting on 12 January 1998 were included in each member's packet. He passed a few additional copies out to friends and visitors, with a request that all review the minutes for approval.
4. Paper Review Guidelines and New Review Forms
Secretary Jim Gillespie presented a new draft of A1A06's paper review guidelines, with a few explanatory comments. The guidelines were amended to address some suggestions and comments made at the winter meeting of A1A06, and to match the format of the newly revised Paper Review Forms that TRB issued in the spring. Copies of the new review forms were included in the members' packets. Norman asked that committee members and friends send suggestions to Jim by mid-August. The finalized guidelines will be available, to those reviewers who want them, when this year's TRB submittals are distributed in September. [The guidelines have been placed on the web page on August 25. Sorry for the delay. Please send any comments to Jim Gillespie.]
5. Calls for Papers for 1999
Norman asked the attendees to ponder on possible calls for papers that the committee might want to make in 1999.
6. Committee Membership and Triennial Committee Review
Norman reminded the committee of the coming triennial review which TRB requires all committees to undergo. Given ample advance notice, he began assembling the requisite information over a year ago. Norman added that several members will complete three-year terms on the committee as of the January 1999 meeting. He asked for three or four volunteers to form a Membership Subcommittee. This subcommittee would craft a committee policy and procedure for recruiting new members.
Joint Subcommittee on Pricing
Norman gave an update on the doings of the Joint Subcommittee on Pricing. In reaction to Committee A1A01's request that TRB restore their name and scope from "Taxation and Finance" to "Taxation, Finance, and Pricing", TRB is considering a reorganization of the joint subcommittee and a slight expansion of its duties. Some members of the other economics committees had fretted that A1A01's name and scope change would create confusion in August when TRB assigns paper submittals for review, as three separate committees deal with three separate (though overlapping) sets of "pricing" issues. Under the proposed reorganization, each sponsoring committee - A1A01, A1A06, and A1C01 - would nominate four members to the Joint Subcommittee on Pricing. Chairmanship would rotate among members representing each of the sponsors in a three-year cycle. The joint subcommittee would advise the TRB staff liaison, Jon Williams, in assigning each TRB paper submittal that covers with a "pricing" topic to one of these three committees that deal with "pricing" issues.
Jon Skolnick remarked that pricing, as he sees it, is an economic efficiency issue, not a revenue issue. He would prefer that A1A01's scope refer to "tolling" rather than "pricing". Tom Keane agreed that "tolling" would be more descriptive than "pricing". The committee concluded, however, that the proposed changes to the Joint Subcommittee on Pricing would ensure that the appropriate committee would review each "pricing" paper that TRB receives, and that there was no harm in allowing the name and scope change that A1A01 desired.
[A1A06 will be nominating four people to be involved with the Joint Subcommittee. Please let me know if you would like to be one of these people-NSJF.]
Misc
A1D05 (Transportation Planning Needs and Requirements of Small- and Medium-sized Communities) will sponsor a conference in September 1998. A1D06's Subcommittee on Performance Measures is planning a conference for the fall of 1999.
7. TRB State of the Art Report
Randy Eberts circulated copies of a 16 April 1998 letter in which Robert Skinner, executive director of the NRC-TRB, had requested a forward-looking white paper of 3,000 words or less (i.e., 10-11 pages) from each committee in TRB Division A. Glen Weisbrod, Fredric Berger, Nilam Bedi, and Bahar Barami will work with Randy to produce such a white paper on behalf of A1A06 by March or April 1999. Glen asked the committee if they would like to see a draft outline before the white paper is written. Jim Gillespie opined that an outline was not necessary; to see a draft of the white paper itself would suffice for him. Norman asked the committee to send their suggestions regarding topics or themes that the white paper ought to cover to Glen Weisbrod or Randy Eberts by 1 September 1998.
The committee will receive a report on progress at the Annual meeting and if a draft is available in December, it will be circulated to members and friends for comment.
8. Conference on Data and Economic Analysis for Transportation
Dave Forkenbrock filled the committee in on the continuing discussion about a sequel to the March 1997 Information Needs conference in Irvine, CA, at which the participants offered several suggestions for future conference topics. Multiple conferences, in fact, devoted to a variety of more specific subjects, could spin out of the Irvine conference. The proposed follow-up would bring together users, analysts, "brokers", and generators of economic data in either the fall of 1999 or the spring of 2000. The planners would like to attract the chief accounting officers of state DOTs, federal officials, and transportation economists and planners. A three-page handout, included in members' packets, described the background, the policy context, and the technical context for the proposed conference. The handout contained also a task statement and a preliminary work plan according to which the conference could be organized. Dave added that a second data conference could possibly lead to another later conference on benefit/cost analysis or on economic development.
9. Research Updates
Patty Ellis announced the completion of a handbook for small (<50,000) and medium-sized (<200,000) metropolitan planning organizations. The handbook, in whose production Patty had a large part, covers travel demand forecasting, understanding of available data sources, and interpretation of data. It also refers the reader to other useful publications, such as the Quick-Response Freight Manual.
Farideh Ramjerdi reported a number of potentially interesting research projects taking place in Europe. A new value-of-time study is underway in Norway. An estimation of the economic impact of the planned Oresund Bridge, which will connect Denmark and Sweden, is also underway. A study on Pricing European Transport Systems (PETS) is underway.
10. 1999 Annual Meeting Conference Session Ideas
Norman noted that in addition to paper sessions, whose number depends in part on the number of qualified submittals, A1A06 can sponsor at least one conference session.
Glen Weisbrod proposed a session devoted to specific examples that illustrate what "economic development" means in the context of transportation. Dave Forkenbrock noted that Glen's suggestion resembled a suggestion for a conference session on "post-evaluation", raised earlier at the A1C01 summer meeting. Mike Lipsman asked if Glen intended project-level or program-level examples; project-level, Glen specified.
Randy Eberts proposed a session to study partnerships between local government and the state DOT, as transportation spending is often the "biggest arrow in the quiver" of options available to spur economic development. Shirley Loveless remarked that economic development is a selling point in attracting scarce public funds. Norm Wuestefeld asked if such a session could be multi-modal. Farideh Ramjerdi asked if international examples could be included. Loyd Henion opined that international experience is relevant. Glen responded that, for his part, he was thinking more of growth and productivity than of local "economic development". It was suggested that the conference session look at the relationship between transit investment and labor force mobility.
Norm Wuestefeld wondered if two conference sessions, one devoted to growth and productivity (`macro' development) and one devoted to local economic enhancement (`micro' development), were feasible. Dave Forkenbrock wondered if two such sessions could be programmed as a single "super-session". TRB liaison Jon Williams replied that the idea was probably feasible; it would be better, in any case, to ask initially for more rather than less. Glen Weisbrod agreed to plan a session on the economic development impacts of local transportation projects; Jim Gillespie agreed to plan a session on the growth and productivity impacts of regional transportation projects or programs. Farideh, Loyd, Sondip Mathur, Dick Mudge, and Mike Walsh volunteered to assist Glen and Jim.
11. Presentation by Nilam Bedi
As Nilam Bedi was absent, the topic was skipped.
13. TRB Liaison's Report
Jon Williams reported that the Group 1 Council approved in April 1998 the recommendation of the four economics committees (A1A01, A1A06, A1C01, and A1C06) that TRB create an award in memory of the late William Vickrey. (Professor Vickrey, the only Nobel Prize winner who regularly attended the TRB annual meetings, published many pioneering articles on the subject of transportation economics.) The Council suggested that at most one transportation economics paper of exceptional merit be so honored in a given year, stressing that the award need not be conferred every year. The Council also suggested that the committees write an account of Vickrey's accomplishments for the edification of future researchers who will not remember him personally, and a description of the formal mechanism by which candidate papers will be nominated and judged.
Jon announced that the 1999 summer meetings of the economics, finance, and planning committees will take place in the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston, MA: "a nice, walkable part of downtown, with good public transit." The date is early July but after the 4th. This is a change from the dates of 1-3 August announced in Seattle. Jon and Norman asked that the members and friends think about how they would like the 1999 summer meetings to look, and that they come to the TRB Annual Meeting in January 1999 prepared to present their wishes. Jon reminded the committee that the Annual Meeting would take place 10-14 January in Washington, D.C.
Ken Opiela pointed out that the new highway authorization legislation, TEA-21, provides a 20-50% increase in funding for NCHRP during the six-year period to which it applies, including $24 million available in March 1999. For this reason SCOR may have a little more acceptance of "soft-side" projects than they have had over the past few years since the SHRP program lapsed. Ken urged attendees to write up problem statements that were particularly important to them, and to "get them into the hopper before Thanksgiving". Ken added that he had received the new metric version of MicroBENCOST the previous Friday.
12. Discussion of Possible Conference Development
Norman Foster passed around a copy of the table of contents from the published proceedings of the 1989 Williamsburg conference. Evidently organizing such a conference would be a lot of work; a steering committee would be needed. Who has ideas to share, Norman asked; who sees pitfalls?
Glen Wiesbrod said that broad coverage of all transportation modes is desirable and that the mix of papers in 1989 was good. Ralph Erickson suggested that the Steering Committee should make some effort to focus the conference scope. Shirley Loveless noted the deregulation of air and rail over the last decade had been very significant; JIT had developed and port development was dependent on rail connections and reliability. The creation of the mailing list anouncing the conference will be an important. Jim Gillespie stressed that a broad coverage is desirable. Wayne Placide agreed that an update is warranted. Focus should be inclusive of modes (air, water, etc.) Marion Poole suggested that a few days of effort would be needed to brainstorm issues. Randy Eberts noted the importance of the economic development side of the equation, especially at the state and local level. The devolution of highway programs has made the sub-national level even more important.
Glen mentioned the Council on Urban Economic Development's upcoming conference in San Diego. Shirley added that an American Planning Association conference was also coming.
[Based on the discussion, A1A06 will move forward to develop a formal proposal to hold a conference on Transportation and Economic Development, to be held in the 2000 or 2001 timeframe. The next step in the development of this conference will be the setting up of a number of groups to look at the specific issues involved. NSJF will be contacting everyone in the next week or so to accomplish this. If you have a particular area of interest, please contact me asap. Everyone will be assigned to one of the groups-NSJF].
*** Please note that A1A06 will meet on the Sunday afternoon of TRB, from 4 to 7 pm or so, to discuss the findings of each of these groups. Please plan to attend if at all possible ***
14. The meeting adjourned at about 6:00 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Norman Foster
Chair
Recorder
James Gillespie
August 25, 1998
Note: This information is provided for the use of committee members and friends and is not endorsed by the Transportation Board TRB or the National Research Council.
