An Alternatives Analysis (AA) is a detailed planning study that takes between 12 to 16 months to complete. The purpose of the AA is to compare and evaluate several transportation system improvement alternatives against one another. The Alternatives Analysis study will evaluate alternatives against a common set of evaluation criteria, goals, objectives, etc.
The Alternatives Analysis (AA) will include several components, including estimates of capital and operating costs, forecasts of traffic levels, transit ridership, travel times, and assessments of impacts for each transportation system alternative. Also a number of alternative future land use/development scenarios will be considered, to help show the differences among these varying growth patterns, particularly in terms of their transportation needs and impacts.
An Alternatives Analysis (AA) is a required study for projects if they are to ever receive federal funding. Currently, there are regulations governing the AA, and this study’s process and components have been designed to fully reflect those regulations.
In terms of the transportation system improvements that will be studied, the federal regulations clearly require that certain options be considered. They can be organized into three "categories" of options:
No-Build Alternative
Low-Cost Alternative with Transportation Demand Management (TDM) and Transportation System Management (TSM) approaches
Build Alternatives (i.e., several transit and highway improvement alternatives)
At the very end of the Alternatives Analysis (AA) process (after the evaluation has been completed), the end products of the study are anticipated to be the following:
a recommended "Preferred Investment Strategy",
an implementation schedule/timeline,
a long-range financial strategy, and,
a long-range land use/regional development strategy.
After the AA, further environmental and engineering work would need to take place, and could potentially take between one and two years. After that, if it is recommended, construction could begin.
