Evaluating Proposed Solutions
Evaluation of the solutions should begin with a future “no build" condition that illustrates the impact of not changing the current transportation system beyond improvements with funding that is already committed. The future “no build" condition is the condition against which the proposed solutions are compared and an important tool for meaningful transportation decision-making. Typical components of the future “no build" condition include existing pedestrian, bicycle, transit, and roadway systems as well as the committed projects associated with each system.
The future “no build" condition and the solutions developed to address the identified needs should be evaluated against evaluation criteria established earlier in the TSP during the Step 2: Goals and Objectives. In addition to evaluation criteria based on goals and objectives from Step 2, the evaluation criteria should also help identify:
- Environmental constraints – Solutions may impact rivers, streams, wetlands, or other designated environmentally sensitive areas.
- Engineering feasibility constraints – Solutions may pose substantial engineering challenges.
- Funding constraints – Solutions may have significant costs, so order-of-magnitude cost estimates should be developed for each of the solutions.
The preliminary set of evaluation criteria may be different from the criteria developed early in the planning process to evaluate the projects included in the TSP and may be qualitative in nature.
The application of these criteria should help to identify the preferred set of solutions or, at a minimum, prioritize or reduce the potential number of solutions to be included in the TSP.