Draft Memorandum for the Record

Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization Meeting

Congestion Management Process (CMP) Committee Meeting Minutes

April 24, 2025, Meeting

9:00 AM–10:00 AM, Zoom Video Conferencing Platform

Jay Monty, Chair, Representing Mayor Carlo DeMaria, City of Everett

Decisions

The CMP Committee agreed to the following:

• Approve the minutes of the meeting of October 31, 2024
• Approve the minutes of the meeting of January 9, 2025

Meeting Agenda

1. Introductions

See attendance below.

2. Public Comments  

There were none.

3. Action Item: Approval of October 31, 2024, Meeting Minutes

Documents posted to the MPO meeting calendar

1. October 31, 2024, Meeting Minutes (pdf) (html)

Vote

A motion to approve the minutes of the meeting of October 31, 2024, was made by the City of Boston (Jen Rowe) and seconded by the Three Rivers Interlocal Council (Town of Norwood) (Steve Olanoff). The motion carried.

4. Action Item: Approval of January 9, 2025, Meeting Minutes

Documents posted to the MPO meeting calendar

1. January 9, 2025, Meeting Minutes (pdf) (html)

Vote

A motion to approve the minutes of the meeting of January 9, 2025, was made by the Three Rivers Interlocal Council (Town of Norwood) (Steve Olanoff) and seconded by the Town of Arlington (John Alessi). The motion carried.

5. Proposed CMP Multimodal Network—Priyanka Chapekar, MPO Staff

Priyanka Chapekar, MPO Staff, presented an overview of the proposed CMP Multimodal Network, including the development process, the network’s components, and a demonstration of the application.

P. Chapekar discussed the CMP program’s status and stated that MPO staff have completed developing the program’s regional objectives and are working on developing the CMP network. P. Chapekar stated that MPO staff plan to develop multimodal performance measures as the program’s next initiative.

P. Chapekar stated that the CMP network acts as a base framework for developing congestion performance measures and typically consists of just roadways, however, MPO staff are proposing a multimodal network. P. Chapekar stated that the proposed multimodal network would serve a three-fold purpose, which would include the following:

• Identify high-volume roadways for setting up congestion performance metrics
• Visualize user volumes on alternative modes to determine relevant performance metrics
• Visualize existing linkages or gaps between roadways and other modes of transportation to promote modal shift as a strategy for congestion reduction

P. Chapekar discussed the different components of the proposed CMP network, which included roadways, freight corridors, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) bus routes, MBTA rapid transit, MBTA commuter rail, and bicycle and pedestrian networks.

P. Chapekar stated that MPO staff adopted the following steps to identify high-volume roadways:

• Identify existing infrastructure
• Calculate average traffic volumes by route
• Calculate regional average traffic volume to set threshold
• Identify roadways that have a higher average traffic volume value than the threshold
• Visualize selected segments of roadways

P. Chapekar discussed the components of the proposed CMP network and their data sources, which included the details listed in Table 1.

Table 1
Proposed CMP Multimodal Network: Components and Data Sources

AADT = Annual Average Daily Traffic. CMP = Congestion Management Process. MassDOT = Massachusetts Department of Transportation. MAPC = Metropolitan Area Planning Council. MBTA = Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. NA = Not Applicable. NHFN = National Highway Freight Network.

P. Chapekar discussed the additional data that is included in the network, which included the following:

• Geographical boundaries of Boston Region, subregions, and municipalities
• Community Transportation Access data showing the percentage of the following population to identify their correlation to the existing congested transportation networks:
• Minority
• Elderly
• Youth
• Disabled
• Low-income

P. Chapekar demonstrated the CMP network’s interactive web application, which will be publicly accessible on the CMP page of the MPO website. P. Chapekar stated that the application’s purpose is to provide an overview of high-volume multimodal transportation networks in the region to residents and stakeholders and allow viewers to visualize overlaps between different modal links.

Discussion

John Romano, Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) Highway Division, suggested that major roadways in the CMP roadway component of the map could have name labels for ease of understanding.

Steve Olanoff, Three Rivers Interlocal Council (Town of Norwood), asked for clarification on Average Annual Daily Traffic (AADT) as a volume metric and on methodology used for including certain roadways in the network.

P. Chapekar responded that AADT measures traffic volumes rather than congestion. The metric has been adopted as a preliminary method for identifying roadways with high volumes that were determined based on the regional average AADT value.

S. Olanoff asked for clarification on the National Highway Freight Network freight corridor classes in the freight component on the map and suggested better stylization of the layer for ease of understanding.

Jen Rowe, City of Boston, asked whether the current bicycle-pedestrian network showed all existing infrastructure.

P. Chapekar responded that the current networks include limited infrastructure provided in facilities datasets published by either MassDOT or Metropolitan Area Planning Council, and that staff are open to recommendations on other, more comprehensive datasets.

Judy Shanley, Easterseals, asked whether the network would also include any demographic data or analyses.

P. Chapekar responded that while the CMP network focuses on traffic and transportation data, the CMP network does have demographic data layers showing percentages of vulnerable population groups to understand their correlation with existing transportation networks.

John Strauss, Town of Burlington resident, asked about the timeline from when the web app would be publicly available.

P. Chapekar provided an estimated timeline of two to three months.

J. Rowe asked if MPO staff could share a version of the CMP network web app with CMP committee members for their review.

P. Chapekar responded that a more refined version can be shared with committee members in about one month.

6. Next Meeting

P. Chapekar discussed the approximate schedule for the next CMP committee meeting, which will be held in June, and stated that the ongoing roadway pricing study being conducted by MPO staff would be the primary topic of discussion in the meeting.

7. Public Comments

There were none.

 8. Members’ Items

There were none.

9. Adjourn

A motion to adjourn was made by the City of Boston (J. Rowe) and seconded by the Advisory Council (L. Diggins). The motion carried.