Long Range Transportation Plans are an essential element of an agency's transportation planning process. These documents serve as the foundation for the development of the Transportation Improvement Programs (TIPs) that are administered at the agency's regional level through a cooperative effort between the FLH Division offices and the various Federal Land Management Agencies (FLMAs). The traditional LRTP is a 20-year planning horizon vision document that reflects the application of programmatic transportation goals to project prioritization. Transportation plans are conducted at the National, Regional, and unit level for FLMAs. LRTPs include financial components that demonstrate how the recommended transportation plan can be implemented, identify the public and private resources expected to be available to carry out the plan, and recommend any additional financing strategies for needed projects and programs.
Transportation plans vary in terms of their planning horizon, scope, purpose and geographic scale. However, the same general planning process is followed whether the plan is being developed at a unit, statewide, multi-state regional or national scale. The diversity of transportation assets, the varied conditions, the sensitive environments and the growing and evolving needs of the visitors to these federal lands are among the challenges that face these agencies. Adding to these challenges are the modern day needs related to safety, congestion and addressing the implications of climate change, all of this occurring in a fiscally constrained environment. It is imperative that agencies prioritize their transportation needs and investments across all travel modes and facilities and spend transportation dollars wisely. The FLMAs use LRTPs to guide decision making and prioritize future funding to fulfill the transportation needs for the betterment of their region or unit.
The FLH Planning Team is responsible for either directly developing, or assisting in the creation and implementation of, Long Range Transportation Plans for all of our Federal Land Management Agency partners. A representative listing of recently completed assignments of this nature include the following:
- National Park Service
- Fish and Wildlife Service
- Forest Service
- Bureau of Land Management
- Collaborative Long Range Transportation Plans