elcome to the 2040 RTP Public Outreach website. These pages provide you with information on the development of the 2040 RTP.
The 2040 Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) is the framework for the Houston region’s transportation system to the year 2040. It identifies the goals, strategies and priorities for meeting the region’s transportation needs. Since 1962, federal law requires that urban areas with populations exceeding 50,000 people to develop and regularly update their RTP, meet air quality budget targets and demonstrate that transportation spending does not exceed anticipated revenues.
Federal regulations require RTPs to have at least a 20-year planning horizon. The current RTP, the 2035 RTP Update, was adopted in 2010 and was based on the 2035 RTP, which was adopted in 2007. The Update became necessary to remain in compliance with fiscal constraint issues due to the 2008 recession, which reduced the list of future transportation projects substantially. A new plan is now needed that extends the planning horizon as well as meets all other usual requirements, such as air quality budgets, fiscal constraint and changing priorities.
In 2012, the federal surface transportation funding legislation, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21), was enacted. It requires that RTPs adopt performance measures and standards for the transportation system. Consequently, the 2040 RTP, in addition to being based on new demographic forecast data and anticipated land use changes, contains goals that have been reworded and reformulated in anticipation of performance measures and standards. Although there is no national consensus on performance measures yet, some regions have begun using them to track the progress of their RTP. The Houston region is currently studying which performance measures to utilize and monitor.
The links on the left side of this page take you through different topics of the 2040 RTP development: RTP Process, Demographics, System Overview, Current Plan, Revenue Forecast, and Vision and Goals. After you have finished with those, please take the survey found in the link at the top right hand side of the page.
Tell your friends and neighbors to get informed and involved by visiting this website.
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Next: RTP Process