National Coalition on Truck Parking: State, Regional, and Local Government Coordination Working Group Meeting 4 - August 21, 2018
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Contact Information: Freight Feedback at FreightFeedback@dot.gov
U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
Office of Operations
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20590
August 21, 2018
A recording of this meeting is available upon request.
Champion:
- Scott Grenerth, Truck Specialized Parking Services (TSPS)
Facilitators:
- Tiffany Julien, FHWA
- Jeff Purdy, FHWA
- Jordan Wainer, Volpe
Welcome and Introductions
Jordan welcomed the group to the meeting and provided an overview of the phone settings and webroom. She also stated that the meeting is being recorded for those who cannot attend and that the link to the recording will be distributed via email later. Jordan then introduced the Working Group Champion, Scott Grenerth.
Working Group Products Discussion
Scott welcomed the group and transitioned the Working Group meeting to discuss the draft products Volpe created and distributed via email to the Working Group members. Scott stated that this Working Group meeting is intended to gather feedback for polishing and finalizing the products. The working group will also discuss future research needs and next steps.
The Working Group products created are:
- MPO-101 Brochure (How to Improve Truck Parking in your Region)
- Parking and Staging Requirements in Local Zoning
- The Importance of Considering Truck Parking in Local Zoning
- Best Practices for Incorporating Truck Parking into State and MPO Freight Plans
Scott and Jordan went through the products one by one and solicited feedback from the group.
1. How to Improve Truck Parking in your Region Brochure
- Scott stated that this product was created for those who want to get involved with a metropolitan planning organization (MPO). It will be available online to print as a trifold brochure as well as a narrative document.
- Working group members provided the following suggestions:
- Emphasize what the Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP) is and highlight how to spend federal funds on transportation projects.
- Take out the population reference under the "Who Makes Decisions at MPOs" section.
- Indicate that MPOs are not the ultimate decision-makers but rather conveners of representatives from State and local agencies.
- Re-word the section in the green panel to state that available funding is competitive with other freight related projects. Collaboration between the private industry and MPOs is needed to prioritize truck parking.
- Mention the regional transportation board and clean cities coordinator in the contacts list.
2. The Importance of Considering Truck Parking in Local Zoning
- Scott stated that this product provides background information on why truck parking is important for practitioners.
- Working group members provided the following suggestions:
- Update the title to The Importance of Considering Truck Parking in Local Planning and Zoning.
- Remove Philadelphia as an example. Philadelphia submitted a Request for Information (RFI) on truck parking recently but has not implemented anything yet.
- Best practices for local zoning design ideas will be helpful to provide to municipalities. This can be a future research idea.
- Include why air quality standards in non-attainment areas can increase needs for truck parking. Truck stop electrification can be a solution if that is a concern, and also be a future research idea.
- Replace Fostering Advancements in Shipping and Transportation for the Long-Term Achievement of National Efficiencies (FASTLANE) with Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (INFRA) under grant opportunities.
- Highlight how parked trucks in unspecified locations can block bicycle lanes, vehicle lanes or intersection and driveway sightlines.
3. Truck parking in State and MPO freight plans
- Scott stated that this product provides different approaches on how to include truck parking in freight plans from different regions.
- The Boston and Atlanta working group members agreed on text for their sections.
4. Parking and Staging Requirements in Local Zoning
- A working group member mentioned that she visited the truck parking site in Elmira and was impressed by what she saw. She also mentioned that the information about Chicago was helpful.
- Working group members provided the following suggestions:
- Change title to include "local planning and zoning" to correspond with the change to the title for The Importance of Considering Truck Parking in Local Zoning product
- Coordinate with the American Planning Association (APA) to write an article for their magazine or set up a webinar about this topic. Reaching out to their freight policy task force would be a good place to start.
Research Needs Not Pursued
- Jordan listed all the research needs working group members suggested at during previous working group meetings that were not pursued to develop as products. The working group members discussed which ideas were worth prioritizing to pursue next. The research needs not pursued include:
- Ensure truck parking is addressed in State and MPO freight plans.
- Education/outreach involving general public and elected officials.
- Multiple working group members agreed that this is a priority to pursue. Working group members mentioned examples such as educating the public on "not in my backyard" (NIMBY) issues and developing an elevator speech for local agencies to use on why truck parking is important.
- Identify revenue sources to make truck parking facilities attractive land uses for local governments.
- A working group member mentioned the importance of integrating truck parking into certain brown-fields and gray-fields, while ensuring it environmentally safe and economically beneficial for the community.
- Use coordination between DOTs and trucking industry for permitting/operations as a model for truck parking collaboration.
- A working group member brought up using surveying field work to determine what makes truck parking areas low or no idle zones and to collaborate with purveyors of equipment and State and DOT agencies.
- Use industry events to highlight issues and promote solutions.
- Financing truck parking expansion.
- A working group member mentioned that public private partnerships can be a good avenue for getting funds for expansion, and with utility companies regarding air quality concerns.
- Other future research needs
- A working group member reiterated the need for truck parking design guidelines mentioned earlier in the meeting and to include guidelines for other conditions such as emissions, security, etc., for those who have never dealt with this type of land use.
- Jordan mentioned that a similar product was created in the Parking Capacity working group, however, it's an item that can be expanded upon to include more information and lessons learned.
- A working group member mentioned the importance of enforcement for illegal truck parking and methods to use to gradually enforce new regulations.
- A working group member reiterated the need for truck parking design guidelines mentioned earlier in the meeting and to include guidelines for other conditions such as emissions, security, etc., for those who have never dealt with this type of land use.
Next Steps
- Product packaging options
- Jordan mentioned that after Volpe finalizes the products based on feedback from this meeting, FHWA will review and publish the products on the National Coalition on Truck Parking website as PDFs available to download. These products will be standalone products and packaged by the working group. However, FHWA is open to suggestions for other packaging options. Other working groups suggested packaging the products by audience or topic.
- Working members suggested packaging the products by audience (to truckers or practitioners). However, the title of the products may be obvious enough to be targeted to specific groups.
- Working group members requested collaboration among themselves to know who is reaching out to what organizations for outreach with these products to avoid duplication.
- Tiffany Julien mentioned that FHWA plans to post the products to the website and have print outs to share at the Transportation Research Board (TRB) annual meeting or other meetings related to truck parking initiatives.
- Jason's Law Survey
- Jeff Purdy, provided an overview of the 2018 update to the Jason's Law survey. The survey will:
- Update the inventory truck parking and identify improvements to truck parking availability since the previous survey.
- Evaluate truck travel by State for the purposes of evaluating increases in truck parking demand.
- Evaluate the types of technology being used to monitor availability and demand that have resulted from recent advances in truck parking information systems and applications.
- Compile truck parking plans, studies, and projects completed by States and MPOs, particularly as it relates to new freight planning requirements of the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act.
- Jeff indicated that inventory will focus on State operated and public facilities, rest areas, truck stops and major ports. It will not include private facilities.
- Jeff Purdy, provided an overview of the 2018 update to the Jason's Law survey. The survey will:
- Annual Meeting
- Jordan mentioned the annual webinar meeting is tentatively scheduled for the week of December 3. Each working group champion will have about 15 minutes to talk about the products and the process used to create them.
- Jordan also mentioned that Volpe is putting together a final report which will explain the process to develop the products.
- Jordan stated that the tentative timeframe is late November and December for published report/products.
