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 REFLECTIONS

By James D. Hawley, AICP

As many of you are aware, I will be resigning the position and ending my career in the public sector, as the Area Plan Commission’s Executive Director, at the end of  calendar year 2003.  For the last 27 years, first as the Principal Planner for the Transportation Study, and as Executive Director from July 1980, I have served the Area Plan Commission of Tippecanoe County and the citizens of our community.

I embarked on a career in Transportation Planning in 1965, just three years after the 1962 Congressional enactment requiring urban areas (over 50,000 population) to engage in the 3-C planning process, (Coordinated, Comprehensive and Continuing), as a condition of receiving Federal Transportation project funds.  In those days transportation-planning funds were administered by the Bureau of Public Roads and land use planning (701 funds), through the Department of Housing and Urban Development.  As a result, many studies were cooperatively funded.  Parking Studies had dual funding sources: one for off street inventory and analysis, and another for on-street characteristics.  Contrast that with today’s PL & FTA funding mix, covering all elements of Transportation planning, in a single Unified Planning Work Program.

My initiation into transportation planning was with the Clark County-Springfield (Ohio) Regional Planning Commission and the Clark County-Springfield Transportation Coordinating Committee.  My responsibility:  To oversee the coding of the land use inventory.  In the 60’s in Ohio, computer punch cards were created for all inventories and provided to the highway department’s central office, where along with Origin & Destination information, a building sized computer provided the necessary outputs to develop 20-year transportation plans and alternatives.  Contrasted with that scenario is today, where virtually every mid-sized to large community can develop the same outputs from tabular inputs on a desktop.  Yes, we have come a long way in the past 41 years. 

In 1976 when I started with the Area Plan Commission of Tippecanoe County as “Transportation Study Director” a Principal Planner to the Commission, it was staff’s mission to create the first 20-year Transportation Plan for the community.  This we accomplished in 1978 for the year 2000.  It was followed by the Transportation Plans for 2010, 2015, and most recently, 2025.  In-house, utilizing QRS, Tranplan and now Transcad programs, we have evolved in process and sophistication in analysis with the appropriate tools.  And the list goes on… Staff is now developing base data and projections for population, land use and employment in preparation for the development of the 2030 Plan, in FY 2004.

We are quite fortunate to have both transportation planning and land use planning authority vested in our staff and organization.  This has allowed full integration of all the planning variables directing future land use to be utilized in our community.  This has also provided us with the unique knowledge of when and where virtually every development will take place and in what time frame.  Working closely with the development community has encouraged their “fleshing out” the goals and objectives of the Comprehensive Plan, and with it the Long Range Transportation Plan network improvements.  

“THERE IS NO INSTANT GRATIFICATION IN LONG RANGE PLANNING.” 

Projects put forth in the 1978 Greater Lafayette Transportation and Development Study report for the year 2000 are just starting to be constructed, 20-30 years later:

Most notable from the highway side is the new US 231, Wabash River Crossing to West Lafayette and the FHWA recent approval of the FONSI to extend the route 2/3’s of the way around the communities’ west side.  From the safety standpoint it is the completion of the Lafayette Railroad Relocation Project eliminating 41 rail crossings and creating a single rail corridor adjacent to the Wabash River for CSX and Norfolk Southern railroads at a cost of $190 million.  This project was made possible by the adoption of Transportation Plans and annual recertification of the planning process by the MPO. 

“MAKE NO SMALL PLANS.”  Your vision today is your communities’ future.

It is with great satisfaction that I see the MPO’s becoming closer partners with FHWA, INDOT, and their consultants, developing plans for projects such as the Hoosier Heartland Corridor, the US 231 corridor (from I-65 to I-70) and other smaller but significant network improvements.  This working together completes the overall planning imperative that the MPO’s and INDOT share a joint Cooperative, Comprehensive and Continuing vision for the transportation needs of the citizens of Indiana.  

While my participation will end this year I want you to know that I am proud to have been a part of the process with you since 1976.  I sincerely wish all of my fellow Directors the good fortune to see your plans become reality.