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TR9303-CS 930811 ' 'HE DEVELOPN,.NT OF ROADWAY IMPAL.., FEES IN TEXAS Robert C. Wunderlich, P. Efi Introduction Roadway Service Units In Texas, the establishment of impact fees for In order to develop a system to assess new roadways has been governed by state enabling development for the cost of roadway facilities needed legislation since 1987. All impact fees imposed on to serve that development, a service unit that can be new development for roadways must conform to the used to express both the supply provided by, and the requirements of this legislation, passed as Senate Bill demand placed on, the roadway system must be 336 and now codified as V.T.C.A. Local Government identified. The service unit was defined as Vehicle Code, Article 395~. This paper describes the technical Miles of Travel (VMT) in the PM peak hour. process used to develop roadway impact fee systems conforming to Article 395 in the cities of Arlington, Service Unit Supp/y Garland, and DeSoto, Texas. For roadway capital improvement projects, the number These systems can be used by any jurisdiction to of service units provided is simply the product of the assess new development for the impact created on the hourly capacity of the roadway and the length of the roadway system in an equitable and rational manner, project. Therefore, a four lane divided roadway project The systems also satisfy the legal requirement that a with a 650 vehile per hour per lane capacity and a rational connection be established between new length of two miles would provide 5200 VMT. development and an impact fee. 650 vehicles per hour per lane x 4 lanes x 2 miles State Legislation = 5,200 VMT per hour In Texas, state enabling legislation requires the use of Service Unit Demand service unit and service area concepts. The service unit establishes the relationship between land-use and The demand placed on the system can be expressed in the demand placed on the roadway system. The use a similar manner. For example, a development of service areas ensures that fees collected from new generating 100 vehicle trips in the PM peak hour with development are based on the cost of roadway projects an average trip length of three miles would generate in the vicinity of that development and will be spent 300 VMT. only on those projects. T/me Per/od Used To Assess Impact Fees Process A critical factor in determining a service unit is the time The process of developing transportation facility impact period selected for the assessment of impact fees. The fee systems in these Texas cities consists of three PM peak hour was selected for the time period for basic steps, assessing impact fees based on the following criteria; 1. Determining an appropriate service unit for roadway 1. The heaviest demand for service typically occurs demand and capacity, during this hour; 2. Determining the cost of providing each roadway 2. Roadways are sized during the planning process to service unit. meet the needs during this PM peak hour, and 3. Determining the service unit generation of specific 3. Roadway capacity can be precisely defined on an land uses. hourly basis. ~ Robert C. Wunderlich, P.E., Senior Associate, Barton-Aschman Associates, Inc., 5485 Belt Line Road, Suite 199, Dallas, Texas 75240 C(~st Per Service Unit '"'" C. Service area.~%re made as large as possible in order to promo(e un!fortuity in the fees. The second step in the overall impact fee process is determining a cost per roadway service unit, or cost An example of a service area is shown in Figure 1. per VMT. The .process involved three steps: (1) Determining a capital improvements program; (2) Developing a service area structure; and (3) Calculating 3 Mile the cost per service unit in each service area. .Dlarneter Circle 1. Developing a Capita/Improvements Program The first step in determining the cost per service unit is to develop a transportation capital improvements program. In Texas, state enabling legislation restricts the calculation to a 10-year horizon period. Therefore, a program of roadway capital improvements necessary to meet 10-year traffic demands must be developed. Construction costs, surveying and engineering fees, land acquisition costs, and projected interest charges and other finance charges may be included in the cost calculations. Cost calculations were also made for previously-built improvements which had excess capacity available for bse by new development. Therefore, the total capital improvements program used to calculate fees included both previously constructed roadways and projects which will be constructed which provide roadway capacity that can be used by new developments in the next ten years. The cost of State projects are specifically excluded FIGURE 1. EXAMPLE SERVICE AREA from inclusion by Article 395. A city may not use impact fee proceeds to pay for its portion of State roadway projects, even if capacity enhancements will serve new development. 2. Determining A Service Area Structure 3. Calculating Costs Per Service Unit (VMT) The structure of the enabling legislation requires that fees be calculated on a service area basis and not a State enabling legislation in Texas requires that impact city-wide average. Nonetheless, the calculations may fees for roadway areas be based on the costs within be made on a system-wide basis within the individual each service area. The following calculations were service area. The criteria used to develop service areas necessary within each service area: were: A. VMT Supply A. The boundaries of the service areas were designed to meet State enabling legislation requirements The amount of net roadway service unit supplied by which essentially require that no point within a the lO-year capital improvements program was service area can be more than three miles from the determined by calculating the total VMT of supply boundary of the service area. provided by the roadway capital improvements program within a service area and subtracting out the VMT of B. Service areas were made to conform to traffic existing usage and existing capacity deficiencies within survey zone (TSZ)boundaries which were the the service area. Deficiencies were defined by smallest geographical area with readily available land identifying roadway segments where the hourly use data. capacity used in calculating the amount of supply was , exceeded by existing traffic demand. B. 'Cost of VMT Supply ~ 1. Trip Generat~''~ The cost of supplying the service units was identified The number of vehicles generated by development in by splitting the roadway projects into segments within the PM peak hour was based primarily on rates each service area and adding the costs associated with published by the Institute of Transportation Engineers~ those segments, supplemented by other sources, including the North Central Texas Council of Governments. C. Projected VMT Demand A key element is that adjustments were made to The third step in this process involved determining the reduce the possibility of overcounting the impact from VMT demand expected from new development in the new development by only counting primary trips to lO-year period using 10-year land use assumptions in new developments and excluding both pass-by and a travel demand model, diverted trips from the trip generation rate. D. VMT attributable to New Development 2. Trip Length In Texas, state enabling legislation requires that impact Trip lengths were based primarily on the information fees be based only on the portions of the capital gathered by the North Central Texas Council of improvements program which can be attributed to, and Governments staff in a region-wide travel survey. The are made necessary by, new development. In each informatiOn was stratified by land use type and was service area the number of service units required by matched to the trip generation rates where possible. new development was compared to the number of Other sources were used to fill in the gaps including service units supplied by the capital improvements the experience of the consultant and the City staff. program and the proportion of the supply which could be attributed to new development was determined. Adjustments were also made to the trip lengths to account for travel on state highways. For example, it E. Cost per VMT was determined that some 15% of the total VMT in Arlington occurs on State highways. Therefore, each The cost per service unit in each service area was trip length was reduced by 15% in Arlington. The determined by dividing the cost of the portion of the adjustment for travel on State highways was 22% in capital improvements program attributable to new Garland and 9% in DeSoto. development by the number of vehicle miles of demand expected in the lO-year period. This adjusted trip length was then divided by two to reflect half of the total average trip length associated Typical average engineering and construction costs per with each one-way trip. This was done to ensure that VMT range from $650 to $950. In each jurisdiction, each new development pays only for half of each the initial fees were set at roughly half of the vehicle-trip made during the PM peak hour to and from calculated cost and finance costs were not included, that development. Within each city, a wide variation of VMT cost between service areas resulted from the requirement Finally, an adjustment was made so that no resulting for separate calculations within each service area. trip length exceeded three miles in order to comply Some jurisdictions have capped fees at a uniform level with the intent of the State enabling legislation, which to reduce differences in fee rates between service implies that the development's responsibilities are areas, limited to an 'area defined by the average trip length, but in no event more than three miles. Service Unit (VMT! Generation Of Specific Land Uses 3. Serv/ce unit (VMT) Generation The assessment of an individual develol~ment's iml~act fee is based on the premise that each vehicle-trip has The vehicle-trip generation rates and average trip length an origin and destination and that the development on information were combined to create a service unit one end of the vehicle-trip should pay half the costs equivalency table similar to Table 1, which lists necessary to provide for the complete trip. Thus, a examples of the VMT rate per development unit for new development is assessed only for a portion of each common land uses. vehicle trip associated with that development. The determination of the dumber of service units generated The trip generation rate per development unit is by a new development has two components: (1) trip multiplied by the number of development units to generation; and (2)average trip length, provide the total VMT generated by a specific · de'velopm~nt. This total VMT is th~'"'nultiplied by the 2. They recogn~'3nd value actions on the part of fee per VMT established within the service area developers wr~ch can decrease the costs of containing the development to determine the total providing impact facilities. Developers receive credit roadway impact fee. for the value of right-of-way dedication and design and construction of major facilities. TABLE I 3. They allow the poo!ing of developer contributions EXAMPLE SERVICE UNIT EQUIVALENCIES within a service area for maximum effectiveness in Trip Veh-Mi/ providing roadway infrastructure within the cities. Dev. Trip Length Dev. Land Use Unit Rate (miles) Unit These systems developed in Texas can be used in any Single Family D.U. .95(x) 3.0 2.eS(x) jurisdiction where there is a desire to assess new Residence development fairly and rationally for the roadway needs General Office 1,000 1.35(x) 3.0 3.99(x) they create. They are comprehensive systems which Building SF GFA require a commitmen( to construct roadways to meet future needs but provide mechanisms to recover the Shopping 1,000 1.623 2.7 4.38(x) Center SF GFA COSTS associated with that construction. They also require jurisdictions to implement sound transportation General Light 1,000 0.353(x) 3.0 ~.OS(x) planning and implementation programs. These are the Industrial SF GFA dividends.that make the establishment of an impact fee system worthwhile. Summary References The transportation impact fee systems developed in Arlington, Garland, and DeSoto provide a mechanism so that all new developments contribute to funding major roadway facilities in proportion to the amount of burden they place on the system. The major features 1. Vernon's Texas Codes Annotated, Local Government of the systems are: Code, Article 395, West Publishing Co., St. Paul, Minnesota 1. They allow new developments to be treated equitably regardless of their location and proximity to major roadway systems and the timing of the 2. Trip Generation, 4th Edition, Institute of development in relationship with the provision of the Transportation Engineers, Washington, D.C. infrastructure.