This project provides for planning and preliminary engineering design for new and reconstructed pedestrian facility and bikeway projects under consideration for inclusion in the Capital Improvements Program (CIP). Prior to the establishment of a stand-alone project in the CIP, the Department of Transportation will perform Phase I of facility planning, a rigorous planning-level investigation of the following critical project elements: purpose and need; usage forecasts; traffic operational analysis; community, economic, social, environmental, and historic impact analyses; recommended concept design and public participation are considered. At the end of Phase I, the Transportation, Infrastructure, Energy and Environment (T&E) Committee of the County Council reviews the work and determines if the project has the merits to advance to Phase II of facility planning: preliminary (35 percent level of completion) engineering design. In preliminary engineering design, construction plans are developed showing specific and detailed features of the project, from which its impacts and costs can be more accurately assessed. At the completion of Phase II, the County Executive and County Council hold project-specific public hearings to determine if the candidate project merits consideration in the CIP as a funded stand-alone project.

There is a continuing need to define the scope and determine need, benefits, implementation feasibility, horizontal and vertical alignments, typical sections, impacts, community support/opposition, preliminary costs, and alternatives for master planned transportation recommendations. Facility Planning provides decision makers with reliable information to determine if a master-planned transportation recommendation merits inclusion in the CIP as a stand-alone project. The sidewalk and bikeway projects in Facility Planning specifically address pedestrian needs.

Beginning in FY23, this project splits the original Facility Planning - Transportation (P509337) into three separate facility planning projects by mode: Facility Planning - Roads (P509337), Facility Planning - Mass Transit (P502308), and Facility Planning - Pedestrian Facilities and Bikeways (P502312).

A pedestrian impact analysis will be performed during design or is in progress. Expenditures will continue indefinitely.