JWC 2005-2007 Work Plan

The following work plan for 2005-2007 includes a short description and time frames. All projects are contingent on availability of funds.

Work Plan Items are as follows:

1. Border Master Plan (Caltrans/ Baja California Case Study)
   The JWC proposes to create compendium border-wide regional master plans with a comprehensive and prioritized assessment of transportation needs along the border including at the Ports of Entry beginning with a pilot project for the Sand Diego/ Tijuana area. The Master Plan provides the next logical step in a comprehensive, binational transportation planning process. The Border Master Plan will go beyond BINS II to gather land use, environment, population and socio-economic data. This data will be used to adequately evaluate growth and future capacity needs at the border and to more realistically forecast future conditions in the border region. Additionally, this data can be utilized to evaluate the existing binational transportation and POE system, its current and future demand, and the infrastructure necessary to handle the expected growth. The Master Plan would help foster consistency amongst the individual agency planning processes, which creates a documentation that feeds back into the periodic updates of plan. The Master Plan must consider short-term, mid-term and long-term needs.
   
   The comprehensive list and prioritized assessment of the transportation and POE needs will support international trade as well as improve cross-border travel and the quality of life for the residents and visitors of each region. Therefore, the Border Master Plan should be incorporated as a component of federal, state and local strategic plans. Additionally, the outcome of the Master Plan process must be accepted and embraced by stakeholders throughout the border region. Stakeholders should make the Master Plan part of their overall planning and forecasting process. The master plan would be regularly updated (every 3-5 years) with new data, policy issues, economic and infrastructure changes as planned by the stakeholders.
2. Development of the Border Information Flow Architecture
   Implementation of the action plan developed by the subcommittee. Information flow architecture is the communications and information framework that supports standards and unites key technologies enabling them to work together and communicate with each other. It describes the interaction among various physical components of the transportation system, such as travelers, traveler information, vehicles, sensors, databases, and control centers. The JWC would apply the concept of information flow architecture to the border "region" to develop a framework that identifies agencies operating at or on the approach to the border and maps the information flows between them. The framework describes how components interact and work together, i.e. what each component does and what information is exchanged among components to achieve total system goals. The JWC will limit itself to transportation information flow at border region, and use the Intelligent Transportation System National Architectures of both the U.S. and Mexico as a guide. Those architectures define detailed transportation systems and subsystems. Any systems that are outside the bounds of transportation are referred to as terminators and would not be dealt with in detail. However those terminators may need to receive transportation information and they may provide transportation information to certain users. Only the flows into and out of the terminators would be defined but not their inner workings.
3. Border Infrastructure Needs Assessment II /GIS (BINSII)
   The BINS II project would provide an update the BINS I information to include a complete project listing, including project description, estimated cost, funding needs and other significant project data prior to further analysis, evaluation, prioritization or assessment of the existing database, transportation projects or corridors. Second, BINS II will include development of a framework and process by which corridor projects can be addressed across jurisdictional lines including identifying corridor connectivity between adjacent states in the same country. The framework would identify the scope, guidelines and timelines for updating each Bi-State Transportation Plan. The BINS II and the JWC Border GIS efforts will become seamless and fully integrated. The BINS II modal database framework will be based upon the linear referencing system and point locations in the BGIS. All BINS II mapping will be derived from the BGIS. GIS compatibility needs will be identified early in the data collection effort; before database updates are provided. The corridor evaluation criteria will be improved to incorporate such elements as "Major Terminal Corridors" (corridors directly serving international POEs, i.e., land border crossings, airports and seaports), as well as "Feeder Corridors" (corridors that only connect with the Major Terminal Corridors, i.e., regional corridors or intermodal facilities that serve the origins and destinations of trade and transport through international POEs.
4. Bottlenecks Study Phase II+
   Using the methodology developed in the earlier JWC bottleneck studies, additional bottleneck studies would be completed along the Texas/Mexico border. A bottleneck study in the vicinity of the Mariposa Port of Entry in Nogales Arizona/Nogales Sonora is being be conducted by the Arizona DOT (see scope of work). In Texas, a state-wide border bottleneck study on the U.S. side is also being conducted by TxDOT (scope of work coming soon).
5. Innovative Finance — Identify border projects in which specific technical assistance in structuring the finances would advance the project.
   A Border Finance Conference — "Innovative Solutions to Challenges to Financing Border Projects" — sponsored by the JWC took place in August 2005. The Border Finance Conference provided information to state and local government decision makers regarding the many public and private financing options available to accelerate critically-needed surface transportation projects. The conference had an emphasis on the US-Mexico border with applications to both border regions. More than 180 people, representing multilateral, federal, state and local governments, as well as representatives of the public finance and project development sectors, participated in the conference.�As a�next step, regional finance workshops providing technical assistance for specific projects are planned. The first workshop was�held on�April 25, 2006�in California/Baja California region.�Refer to the�workshop summary (or PDF, 91K)�and the results of the recommended action to�conduct a financial feasibility study (or PDF, 137K). A future workshop is planned in the El Paso, Texas, southern New Mexico, northern Chihuahua region.�Other technical assistance has been provided to various Federal, State, and private entities.
6. Identify & Finance of short term/ low cost /high impact projects along the border. Once the projects have been identifies a stakeholders group will be convened to discuss the financing options/ design and construction for the projects similar to how the Nogales FAST lane project was developed. The bottleneck study could be used to identify projects.
7. Safety Conscious Planning Seminar and follow up actions.A safety seminar focusing on the US/Mexico Border was conducted in April of 2006 in Hermosillo, Sonora. The goal of the seminar was to implement some of the ideas developed at the conference. Safety Conscious Planning is a comprehensive, system-wide, multi-modal, proactive process that better integrates safety into surface transportation decision making. It is comprehensive because it considers all aspects of transportation safety: engineering, education, public awareness, enforcement and emergency management. It takes a system-wide approach to safety that not only considers specific sites, but also corridors and entire transportation networks at the local, regional and state levels. Safety conscious planning uses multimodal approaches to improve safety, including transit and pedestrian safety improvements. It is proactive because it not only addresses current safety problems, but opportunities to prevent future hazards and problem behaviors. In our case, we want to focus on the land border crossing regions which tend to compound the normal safety problems with unfamiliar surroundings, confusing signage and lane designations.
8. Regional Operations Model
   Use JWC developed tools to identify measures at the macro-and micro-levels that could improve traffic flow. The project will use SimFronteras, STAN and other available transportation models to develop a regional operations model. This model would look at urban and design characteristics, through field studies to evaluate corridors serving POEs. To improve the analysis of cross-border freight flows, the project will also look at data requirements for STAN and SAM (SCT and TxDOT freight models), and possibilities for data sharing.
9. Border Wizard/Sim Fronteras Pilot regional study in the El Paso/Cd. Juarez and San Diego/Tijuana areas
   The BW model has been adopted as the sole U.S. Government platform to analyze a variety of physical and operating characteristics/ parameters to improve international border security and efficiency, including the ability to optimize existing resources. The General Services Administration (GSA) and the federal inspection agencies now have a scientific approach for analyzing alternative designs for new or expanded border stations and determining when a current border station will reach its maximum physical capacity. A Mexican model (Sim Fronteras) will be compatible with the US BW model. The Sim Fronteras model will be incorporated, where possible into the Border Wizard Pilot Projects in the San Diego/Tijuana (SANDAG to coordinate with ImPlan) and El Paso/Cd. Juarez (El Paso MPO to coordinate with IMIP) areas.
10. Border Technology Exchange Program (BTEP) Strategic Plan Update.
    BTEP provides opportunities for sharing information and technology among the U.S. Border States and their counterparts in Mexico. BTEP is a flexible program designed to meet the unique institutional and technical needs of States along the borders and to "fill the gap" in terms of assisting States where there are unmet needs activities. The JWC�updated the�BTEP strategic plan originally developed in 1998. The JWC approved the 2006 – 2011 BTEP strategic plan in Saltillo, Coahuila in November 2006.
11. Develop and implement outreach strategies to implementing agencies and organizations that would utilize the tools developed by the JWC.