Memorandum

City of Lawrence

Lawrence-Douglas County Metropolitan Planning Organization (L-DC MPO)

TO:	David L. Corliss, City Manager
FROM:	Todd Girdler, L-DC MPO Senior Transportation Planner
CC:	Scott McCullough, L-DC MPO Secretary Jessica Mortinger, L-DC MPO Transportation Planner
DATE:	June 11, 2012
RE:	Multimodal Studies Project - Consultant RFP (Request for Proposal)

During 2011 the MPO applied for and was awarded competitive Consolidated Planning Grant (CPG) funding from KDOT for three special studies listed below.

• Commuter Park & Ride Study – this study will involve looking at possible locations to plan commuter park and ride lots to serve the needs of Douglas County residents who work in Topeka and Metro Kansas City. It could also serve shuttle bus needs for special event days in Lawrence. It should identify areas where carpool operations could be based and carpooling could be encouraged. Coordination with commuter bus services and local transit services will also be studied.

• Fixed Route Transit and Pedestrian Accessibility Study – this study will look at obstacles that transit riders face in accessing the fixed route system and identify places where improvements to the pedestrian environment can and should be made to improve and/or enable people to access fixed route transit services. Issues with streets and sidewalks that now prevent people from accessing the fixed route system and force them to rely on paratransit should be studied. Possible locations for bus turnouts that could make the bus boarding and exiting process more convenient for transit riders and more efficient for traffic operations should also be studied.

• Countywide Bikeway System Plan – this project will expand the existing bikeway system planning efforts and the Bikeway System Map to cover all of Douglas County. This project will look at on-road and off-road bikeways, and possible bikeway connections from Douglas County to other areas including Metro Kansas City and the Topeka Area.

CPG funds are federal funds administered by KDOT, and although each of these three projects were sent as separate applications KDOT decided to package them into one project for grant administration purposes. That set of studies is called the Multimodal Studies Project. The funding award from KDOT is for $160,000 which needs to be matched with $40,000 of local funds to complete the total funding of $200,000.

For this project the MPO is using local cash match from the Planning & Development Services Department Budget to pay for the consultant while using KDOT non-cash contributions from the 5-County Regional Transportation Study as match for the MPO staff cost in 2012. This will allow the MPO to complete this Multimodal Studies Project and also do all of the other work that the MPO staff is engaged in this year while keeping the amount of local cash match at traditional levels of about $40,000 or less. This funding is now programmed in the MPO’s 2012 Unified Planning Work Program (UPWP).

City Commission Action Requested

Approve the RFP to seek a consultant to complete the Multimodal Studies Project.

If you have any questions, please contact Todd Girdler at (785) 832-3155 or by email at tgirdler@lawrenceks.org.