Title
TIP Amendment Procedures Review (15 minutes)
Kelly Fomenko, LPA Staff
Narrative
Each state is required under 49 U.S.C. 5304(g) to develop a Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) covering a period of at least four years. The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) determined the North Carolina STIP will cover a ten-year period with the first six years referred to as the delivery STIP and the latter four years as the developmental STIP (the first four years must match the MTP).
While the NC STIP is typically adopted every two years but is required to be adopted at least every four years, there are also amendments that occur to the STIP between these time periods. NCDOT has established the "STIP Amendment and Modification Guidelines" which details how changes can be made to the STIP either by administrative modification or through the formal amendment process, as outlined in the attached documentation.
Currently, DCHC MPO follows these guidelines in that projects that fall within the requirement of a formal amendment are released by DCHC MPO for a 21-day public comment period. Historically, the DCHC MPO Technical Committee (TC) would make a recommendation for Board approval of this amendment prior to the end of public comment. However, a 21-day period is still met between Board release and Board approval, and shortens the overall approval time by one month. After approval, it takes approximately two months for the Board of Transportation (BOT) to approve these amendments.
There has been ongoing discussion about whether this ongoing process is desired by the MPO as the TC is not able to see all possible public comments prior to recommendation. Possible resolutions to this discussion could be to formally state that the TC will only consider recommendation after 21 days, that the TC will consider recommendation before 21 days given a 21 day period still exists, that the public comment period could be reduced to allow amendment pr...
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