Using New Policy, NOACA Reviews and Recommends “No” to Three New Suburban Highway Interchanges

NOACA, the transportation and environmental planning agency for the five-county Northeast Ohio region, adopted a new policy last December to govern evaluations for new or modified highway interchange applications. The policy now requires staff to conduct additional analysis and modeling that will consider the impact of a proposed project on region-wide congestion, development, vehicle miles traveled, and commute patterns, with a specific lens on equity.

As GOPC reported in a previous blog, the goal of the new policy is to establish methodology and criteria to evaluate proposed transportation system improvements for their broader impact on the entire region. At the time the new policy was approved, NOACA had received eight requests for new or modified interchanges. Six months later, NOACA staff has recommended that three of these projects do not move forward based on the new criteria.

Of the eight requests that were under consideration, one was deferred for future analysis. NOACA's modeling indicated the all of the remaining projects would increase vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in their immediate project areas. Staff recommended against the three projects that would cause the largest increases in VMT: full new interchanges at I-71 and Route 57 in Medina; I-71 and Boston Road in Strongsville; and 1-271 and White Road in Northeast Cuyahoga County.