RTP Coordination

The Houston-Galveston Area Council Board of Directors and the Regional Transportation Policy Council are each developing long-range plans over the next two years:

• Regional Plan for Sustainable Development (RPSD)
Is a broad-spectrum plan exploring issues and outcomes related to housing, transportation, infrastructure, the environment, the economy, healthy communities and social equity. The RPSD will develop voluntary, cooperative strategies for counties, cities, public service providers, and others designed to advance the public’s vision for their communities. The RPSD will cover all thirteen counties in the H-GAC service area. The H-GAC Board of Directors has created an advisory committee of local elected officials to provide input and guidance on the development of the RPSD.

• The 2040 Regional Transportation Plan (RTP)
Is a targeted plan that identifies strategic regional transportation goals, performance outcomes, projects and programs needed to support the mobility and access needs of our residents and businesses. The RTP estimates expected transportation revenues from all sources and contains a fiscally constrained program of projects that must meet specific air quality goals for vehicle emissions reduction. The RTP will identify key performance outcomes based on goals set by the Transportation Policy Council and spending priorities which achieve greatest public benefit.

How will these efforts be coordinated?

While the RPSD creates an over-all vision for our region and its communities, the RTP focuses specifically on transportation investments. Both, however, begin from an understanding of the public’s vision for their communities. To avoid confusion and duplicative activity, the large-scale public visioning portions of these plans is a unified, cooperative effort conducted under the name “Houston Galveston Regional Plan”. In this way both plans share common assumptions about regional growth and development. The Transportation Policy Council will continue, however, to be the responsible policy making body for the eight county metropolitan transportation plan known as the 2040 RTP. Because the RTP is the foundation for development of federal and state investment in transportation projects, it will necessarily continue as a stand alone document.

To ensure the success of the collaboration, the Coordinating Committee of the RPSD and the Technical Advisory Committee’s Regional Transportation Plan Subcommittee are meeting jointly and working together through this outreach and visioning phase of work.

What is the timeframe for the coordination effort?

Early in 2012, the public visioning begins and continues through summer. Attached is a schedule of the first round of outreach activities.