Embedded Files
As of May of 2018 here is the status of Omaha's Capital Improvement Process:
Quality of the yearly CIP Report
Quality of the yearly CIP Report
When Mode Shift started its research, it found the CIP Yearly Report was confusing, incomplete and erroneous. Last year the City improved the document into a well organized, readable plan.
Complete Streets
Complete Streets
Omaha’s Complete Streets document outlines how street design must accommodate different modes of transportation based on a street’s context. Once included in the City’s design process, this will have a positive impact on all transportation modes.
Project Execution
Project Execution
The City’s Project Execution is terrible. Millions of taxpayer funds are routinely diverted to cover for huge cost overruns and unplanned projects, so that about half of the projects are cancelled or delayed for years without any explanation. The City must be open about fund re-directing, delays, and cost overruns. What gets reported gets improved: The City must follow the CIP plan, report project status openly, and use a transparent process to divert funds when deviations from the plan are needed.
Project Cost Accounting
Project Cost Accounting
The City only reports 39% of the expenses, and even that does not balance with the City’s own audited financial reports. You don't know where you're going if you don't know where you are: The City must report all project costs and over time, the budgets and schedules will improve.
Transportation Master Plan
Transportation Master Plan
Omaha’s Transportation Element (also known as the Transportation Master Plan) has 20 pages of recommendations that are mostly ignored. The City must follow the recommendations or admit that the Transportation Element is irrelevant.
City Master Plan
City Master Plan
Omaha’s Master Plans are a collection of goals and recommendations, not the strategic vision claimed in City documents. The Mayor’s Administration must develop and follow a Strategic Transportation Plan to guide a rigorous project selection and stop the routine diversion of funds to unplanned projects (see Project Execution, below)
CIP Project Selection
CIP Project Selection
An unknown committee meets behind closed doors and uses undisclosed criteria to decide which projects funds. The Project Selection Process from the City Charter must be followed, and the City should not fear to report which projects don’t get funds and why.
more to come on this subject...
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