Scenario-based planning for the regional impacts of statewide multimodal transportation policies

VTrans 2035 and the Office of Multimodal Transportation Planning and Investment are using twenty-one policies and forty-two performance criteria for evaluating statewide transportation policies. The policies include investing in public transit, planning multimodally, and improving travel mode connections. The criteria encompass safety and security, preservation and management, efficient movement of people and goods, economic vitality, quality of life, and program delivery. In this paper, we analyze the regional impacts of transportation policies across performance criteria, and under various future scenarios. We develop an automated workbook that enables a regional planner to characterize the impacts of the policies for a region of Virginia under a base scenario and five other scenarios. The scenarios are acceleration of sprawl, mass retirement of an aging population, region-wide natural disaster, accelerated growth of information technology amenities, and significant reduction in air quality, all of which were identified via a review of twelve regional plans and interviews with regional planners. The results describe which policies are most sensitive to the scenarios. The policy of investing in technology scores high for all six scenarios.