Description of Project Evaluation Flow Chart

The MPO's evaluation system accounts for all of the information gathered and distills it into ratings in transportation categories (condition, safety, and mobility) and other categories (community impacts, land use, economic development, and environmental). The cost-effectiveness of projects is not rated, but is noted.

First, the project was rated in subcategories with scores from zero to three (except for community impact subcategories and environmental subcategories, which were scored from negative three to positive three). Then the project‚s average score for each subcategory was compared to the average for all other projects of the same type, yielding an average score for each category. The comparison was done using a normal distribution (bell curve). The top 16% of the projects were given the rating "high," the middle 68% the rating "medium," and the bottom 16% the rating "low" in each of the seven categories.

After a project was rated as high, medium, or low in each of the seven categories, numerical values were assigned to those ratings to obtain an overall average score for each project. High, medium, and low overall ratings were assigned, using the normal distribution process.