OIPI Roles and Responsibilities

OIPI is located within the Office of the Secretary of Transportation and was created in 2002 to support and advise the Secretary as chairperson of the CTB. OIPI has three major program areas—VTrans, the state’s long-range transportation plan; SMART SCALE, Virginia’s project prioritization process; and performance management.

OIPI’s goals and responsibilities are specified in § 2.2-229 of the Code of Virginia. The goals are to promote transparency and accountability of the programming of transportation funds; to ensure that the Commonwealth has a multimodal transportation system; to encourage the use of innovation and best practices to improve the efficiency of the Commonwealth's surface transportation network; and to promote the coordination between transportation investments and land use planning.

OIPI takes a leadership role across three key steps within the performance-based planning and programming process—Plan, Invest, and Manage. In this role, OIPI convenes stakeholders and engages the public, conducts planning studies and technical analysis, prioritizes investments, and tracks system performance. Recent examples of OIPI’s work include the I-81 and I-95 corridor studies requested by the General Assembly in 2018 and 2019, respectively; completing Round 3 of SMART SCALE by scoring and recommending 134 projects totaling $869 million in Federal, state, and local funding; and launching in 2019 the development of a new long-range transportation plan, the VTrans Update.

Goals and Objectives

Virginia’s multimodal transportation network is the platform upon which the economy functions, and our residents capitalize on the unique opportunities in Virginia for employment, education, health care, and recreation. Continued strategic investment in the system helps maintain and grow these opportunities, leverages existing assets, and creates a transportation system resilient to new and emerging trends in how we travel. The VTrans2040 Vision, adopted by the CTB in December 2015, envisions a future in which:

Virginia's transportation system will be Good for Business, Good for Communities, and Good to Go. Virginians will benefit from a transportation system that advances Virginia businesses, attracts a 21st century workforce, and promotes healthy communities where Virginians of all ages and abilities can thrive.

The VTrans Update maintains this vision statement and retains the five distinct goals supporting this vision. The goals communicate the key values driving planning, policy, and investment decisions. Virginia and Federal performance measures are organized within these goals in order to evaluate performance at both the goal and performance measure level.

Report Highlights

The Report summarizes all facets of Virginia’s diverse, multimodal surface transportation system performance by providing information about recent, ongoing, and planned investments. It is informed by detailed trend analyses that consider internal and external factors while highlighting forward-thinking projects within the Commonwealth to address critical needs. The below highlights and the chart on the next page summarize key findings of this Report.

» The I-81 and I-95 Corridor Improvement Plans, along with projects like the Atlantic Gateway, I-95 Express Lanes Fredericksburg Extension (FredEx), and the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel (HRBT), will help address congestion and reliability challenges on Virginia's Interstates over the next 10 years.

» The DC2RVA project Record of Decision completes the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) process and enables the Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) and partners to proceed into design and implementation for higher speed and more reliable rail between D.C. and Richmond.

» Transit ridership increased across 19 of 41 Virginia operators in Fiscal Year (FY) 2019, including a 14 percent increase for the Greater Richmond Transit Company (GRTC) due to a bus system redesign and implementation of the Pulse (Broad Street Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)).

» Traffic safety is a public health issue in Virginia. Governor Northam has established the Executive Leadership Team on Highway Safety charged with reducing the rising number of fatalities on Virginia’s roadways.

» Bridge and pavement condition continue to improve based on targeted investment by the General Assembly and CTB. VDOT also is required to assess a sustainable approach to maintaining assets, including special structures.

» VDOT, DRPT, and Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) are investing in new technologies to mitigate emissions (which have decreased over 30 percent since 2014) and greenhouse gases, including EV charging stations and alternative fuel transit and school buses while expanding travel demand management programs and incentives.