Commerce Corridor: Transportation Connectivity, Accessibility, and Economic Opportunity Study

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1 Introduction Michael Baker International is pleased to offer our services for the Commerce Corridor: Transportation, Connectivity, Accessibility. This truly multimodal study will examine the development opportunities that will occur if the Richmond Marine Terminal (RMT) fulfills its potential and will examine the highway and rail transportation needs associated with a number of development scenarios. As stated in the RFP, the opportunity is a very exciting prospect for the Richmond Region: The POV s long-term operation of RMT signals economic development and job creation potential both inside the port gates, but most significantly on adjacent properties around the RMT and throughout the Richmond Region in the supply chain/logistics, distribution and warehousing sectors. The terms of the POV lease with the City of Richmond include an explicit Economic Development Partnership agreement; In partnership with the City of Richmond, the POV will deploy an economic development strategy for the industrial corridor along Commerce Road and Deepwater Terminal Boulevard for the purpose of establishing an inland logistics hub. Additionally, an interest in revitalizing industrial and commercial activity in the area around the RMT and broader Richmond region is shared by the Richmond Regional PDC and TPO, Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) and local partners, the Virginia Office of Public- Private Partnerships (VAP3), and the state transportation agencies, including the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transit (DRPT) and the Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment (OIPI). The potential for RMT and surrounding areas to grow as an inland logistics hub of statewide significance will require supporting investments in transportation infrastructure, primarily the roadway and rail network serving industrial and commercial development sites and the RMT. Currently, the I-95 corridor from the James River Bridge in the City of Richmond south to VA State Route 10 in Chesterfield County is experiencing safety, congestion and state of good repair challenges. Insufficient vertical clearances and deficient interchange designs at multiple locations along the corridor limit connectivity and accessibility to key regional freight activity centers. In addition to the I-95 spine of the corridor, deficiencies in the surrounding road and rail network range from pavement condition, signals and operations, vertical clearances, at-grade rail crossings, turning radii and geometrics, and capacity constraints. The overall corridor has yet to be comprehensively studied to the extent necessary to identify projects and justify investment through competitive federal, state or regional funding processes. Currently funded transportation projects in the area include improvements to Deepwater Terminal Rail, the Commerce Road Reconstruction, and the extension of Deepwater Terminal Road to Goodes Street. These individual projects signal progress, however, the need for a comprehensive strategy to address existing and future transportation challenges is necessary to maximize connectivity, accessibility and allow the full economic development potential of the corridor. Page 1

2 The Michael Baker Team includes our subconsultants Economic Development Research Group (EDR Group) and CDM Smith, and our traffic counting vendor Peggy Malone and Associates. You will find that our Richmond-based team is highly qualified for this assignment. For example: We have previously studied multimodal accessibility at the RMT in a prior OIPI task order, the Accessibility Measures Implementation project We have conducted market studies and economic impact studies for freight investments We have developed the planning and NEPA studies for numerous intermodal facilities served by rail and truck, with associated improvements CDM Smith with Baker prepared the Richmond TPO s first comprehensive freight study as a multimodal grant project for OIPI We prepared the 2025 Needs Assessment for the Richmond Region under VTrans, engaging many of the same stakeholders as this study We have conducted numerous studies of the traffic dynamics along the I-95 corridor in Virginia, including capacity constraints, geometric deficiencies, and proposed new access points working with VDOT, MPO and PDC staff in the Richmond area and other parts of Virginia We have highly qualified rail engineers who have worked on major intermodal facilities and understand the needs of rail operations in an intermodal setting As the team that prepared the original Multimodal Grant Study of Freight Movement for the Richmond TPO, which laid the groundwork for the port and freight planning and development activities that have followed, we have a deep appreciation for the regional importance of the Commerce Corridor study. Within the Baker Team we have a unique combination of freight economic, planning and transportation expertise that is necessary to address the development potential near the port as well as the roadway and rail facilities that will be needed to serve future freight activity. You will find in the pages that follow our Scope of Work, Fee Estimate, and information on our Personnel and Qualifications. The Scope of Work builds on the comprehensive scope provided by OIPI and the Richmond TPO, with additional detail to illustrate our approach and value-added ideas for completing the study. Scope of Work Approach Overview: The study approach will be multifaceted, beginning with assessment of existing conditions and deficiencies/needs identification, and the development of an overall vision for the corridor. The study will rely on input and guidance from an appointed Policy Advisory Committee and Technical Advisory Committee. These groups will meet at key points throughout the study to provide guidance to the consultant team. The Policy Advisory Committee will provide input on high level policy direction, steering of the study, and final review of deliverables. The Technical Advisory Committee will be more deeply involved in needs identification methodologies, structuring future scenarios, and the implementation of modeling tools. Both advisory groups will be involved in the identification of projects, developing a vision for the corridor and surrounding areas, and aid in development of a prioritized list of short-, medium-, and long-term infrastructure investments. A final implementation plan/roadmap piece will clearly describe funding sources, strategies and responsible parties for implementation of each recommended infrastructure investment. Page 2

3 Proposed Advisory Committee Members (subject to change): Stakeholder Technical Advisory Committee Policy Advisory Committee Chesterfield County Barb Smith Bill Dupler City of Richmond Amy Inman Lee Downey CTB Carlos Brown DRPT Michael Todd Pete Burrus OIPI/ Secretary s Office Kelli Nash Nick Donohue POV Chris Gullickson or Sarah Mccoy Jeff Florin P3 Ali Lauzon Ali Lauzon RRPDC/RRTPO Chris Wichman Barbara Nelson VDOT Central Office Chris Detmer Ben Mannell VDOT Richmond District Ron Svejkovsky Mark Riblett VEDP John Loftus Task One: Existing Conditions and Asset Inventory The Baker Team will review all applicable planning documents for the study area, including but not limited to: City of Richmond s Master Plan and any relevant small area plans; Chesterfield County Comprehensive Plan and Jefferson Davis Corridor Plan; DRPT Master Rail Plan, DC2RVA Tier I/II and Richmond to Raleigh Tier II; POV s Master Rail Plan; RRPDC CEDS; RRTPO LRTP and TIP; VTrans2040 Needs Assessments for the Richmond region; GRTC TDM plans; and any applicable rails studies including CSX or NS. Task 1 will include an assessment of rail, transit, and roadway facilities, and will document transportation assets, planned and programmed improvements in the study area. The Consultants will also assess the current and projected freight volumes on all modes coming through the RMT, and will include (as provided by the POV) an assessment of within-the-gate capacity constraints and how that relates to transportation and warehousing/commercial development in the area. Key development or redevelopment sites for micro-scale connectivity and operations assessment will be identified relying on information from the VAP3 Detail-Level Screening Report of the Commerce Road Corridor Redevelopment and up to 4 other sites in the broader study area as directed by the Policy Advisory Committee. Outreach: Kick-off Meeting with Policy Advisory Committee to discuss development potential of key sites and introduce future Task 4 designation of key sites for microscale connectivity and operations assessment; Kick-off Meeting with Technical Advisory committee and coordination with agency and planning staff to collect existing conditions information. Deliverables: Existing Conditions and Asset Inventory Technical Memo including maps at corridor scale, and at smaller geographies around key development/redevelopment sites identified as candidates for micro-scale assessment. Page 3

4 Task Two: Existing Deficiency and Needs Identification This task will include an assessment of rail, transit (job access), and roadway deficiencies and needs, and will document existing transportation issues as they pertain to: safety; capacity (including passenger and freight); structural deficiencies; geometric deficiencies (especially with respect to large/heavy weight freight vehicles); multimodal accessibility; operations/its/signals; overhead height clearances; and access to RMT gates. The deficiencies and needs identification will consider overall corridor functionality of interstate and interchanges, as well as surface street connectivity to key sites at micro-scale assessment geographies. This task will require base year highway capacity analysis, including data collection, model development and analysis using appropriate transportation modeling software. Specifically, the Synchro/SimTraffic software will be used for the micro-simulation and analysis of arterials and intersections while the HCS software will be used for the high-level operations analysis of freeways and interchange ramp junctions. If needed for more complex spot locations such as transition between arterials and freeways, basic CORSIM models will be prepared. A micro-simulation model is being developed by others for the entire I-95 corridor within our study area but it is not expected to be available in time for use in this study effort. However, the Baker team will solicit any and all traffic data collection conducted as part of that effort as it may be usable in this Commerce Corridor Study. Baker will also use O/D data purchased for the I-95 corridor study to enhance the understanding of trip patterns in the study area. The VDOT Traffic Operations and Safety Analysis Manual (TOSAM) provides guidance about the conduct of certain types of traffic studies. While the consultant feels this Commerce Corridor study does not fit the definition of projects covered by the TOSAM (Page 2, Chapter 1), the consultant team will use the TOSAM as a guidance document when applying the traffic operations and safety analysis tools detailed in the manual. Based on the assumption that significant traffic data will be available as described above, the traffic data collection budget is $5,000 which can cover a combination of intersection and double tube roadway counts (for example, the budget would cover 5 intersections requiring 2 count takers and 10 tube count locations of 2 lanes each). As discussed earlier, the Baker Team will maximize the use of existing data from other studies such as the interchange and roadway studies that are in progress, and we do not anticipate collecting any data to supplement the I-95 corridor micro-simulation model. Outreach: Technical Advisory Committee conference call to define methodology, including measures/thresholds and process for defining a deficiency/need. Deliverables: Materials/Handouts for Technical Advisory Committee conference call; Technical Memo of deficiency and needs identification results. Task Three: Visioning In this task, the Baker Team will develop a unified vison for the Commerce Corridor. The consultant team will bring together the Policy Advisory Committee, the Technical Advisory Committee, and other invited stakeholders to review results of Tasks 1 and 2. The consultant team will provide professional facilitation to guide discussion of a long-term Vision for the Commerce Corridor, and opportunities to grow as an Page 4

5 inland logistics hub and jobs center. This task will include a literature review of inland logistics hub case studies and best practices from around the country to inform the Vision. The Baker Team will conduct up to 8 interviews with targeted freight-related businesses and economic development agencies. If a large enough stakeholder group is identified, the consultant will conduct fewer interviews and will also conduct a simple online survey regarding the gaps identified in Tasks 1 and 2; the needs of freightdependent businesses considering locating in the corridor; the perceived market potential/limitations of the corridor; and other key questions as defined by the Policy Advisory Committee and Technical Advisory Committee. Note that this survey might be most productive after the Task 4 market analysis is complete to incorporate reactions to the market analysis. The Consultant team could also conduct 1-2 focus groups, or additional meetings to gather more in-depth stakeholder input on these questions defined above. The budget assumes that materials such as a survey link, project information and project deliverables will be delivered to RRTPO for inclusion on a project page on the RRTPO website. Development of a stand-alone project website would require additional budget resources. Outreach: Full-day workshop with Policy Advisory Committee (meeting #2), Technical Advisory Committee (meeting #2) and other invited stakeholders to share results of Task 1 and 2, develop Vision and market opportunity scenarios for the corridor, and select (from a menu-set provided) up to four additional key sites or areas for microscale connectivity and operations assessment; Public meeting or other outreach technique to gather input from targeted freight-related local businesses, economic development agencies, and interested public. Deliverables: Final Vision Statement; Material for a project page on RRTPO website with deliverables from Tasks 1 and 2; Final Vision document. Task Four: Market Opportunity Scenario Analysis and Future Needs Assessment In Task 4 the consultant team will model and analyze impacts of various growth scenarios for the corridor. This modeling will identify future conditions and needs characterized by metrics for changes in land use, employment by industry, employment by occupation, freight production and freight transportation mode shares for each growth scenario. The consultant team will develop up to 3 growth scenarios that are informed by the Task 3 long-term Visioning and market opportunities and inputs from the VAP3 Detail-Level Screening Report of the Commerce Road Corridor Redevelopment Project area. These 3 scenarios include the baseline future growth scenario and two alternatives. The consultant will identify market opportunities using the existing EDR Group vfreight commodity flow data base, built from the Federal Highway Administration s Freight Analysis Framework modal commodity flow database and forecast, and the U.S. import and export commodity trade flow data from WISERTrade. This data will provide baseline and forecast freight market demand growth for assessment of Commerce Corridor logistics hub market demand opportunities. Individual growth scenarios will reflect potential no-build, baseline and higher or lower demand growth alternatives Commerce Corridor businesses may serve. The team will work with the P3 Group to identify potential market opportunities for logistics operators by commodity type, by hinterland market and by Page 5

6 mode of transport, in combination, that the Commerce Corridor businesses and the projected demand estimated under the different growth scenarios they represent. The growth scenarios will be modeled at both a high-level corridor scale and at a micro-level for the surface street networks. Modeling at the high-level corridor scale will be made using TREDIS to assess future growth scenario impacts and future no-build impacts on economic development and capture of market opportunities. This modeling system will be used to forecast changes in indicators including demand for Commerce Corridor land use, employment, freight production, and freight mode share, among others. Freight flows in the region will be profiled from the TRANSEARCH modal commodity flow data in, out, to, and through the region and through the Commerce Corridor. Characteristics of the modal freight, including shares and links to particular industry sectors will be assessed under the growth scenarios. The Commerce Corridor impacts will be identified for the City of Richmond and the Chesterfield County portions of the Corridor, and the corridor s potential as a statewide logistics hub centered on RMT under each of the growth scenarios. The consultant team will use the demand forecasts for the Commerce Corridor as provided by TREDIS to feed the Richmond/Tri-Cities regional travel demand model. This travel forecasting model will be carefully reviewed for performance and proper coverage in the study area. The existing Richmond/Tri- Cities model lacks specific network coverage in key areas such as portions of Commerce Road, Bellwood Road and Deepwater Terminal Road. The consultant team will add the necessary network detail and associated TAZ centroid connectors to better reflect conditions on the ground. The model will then be validated within the study area based on ground counts. This model will translate demand from the growth scenarios into personal and commercial vehicle volumes on roadways in the corridor that will be used for the micro-scale examination of connectivity and operations of surface street networks in close proximity to key economic development sites. The micro-scale analysis will employ analysis techniques used in the existing conditions assessment (Task 2) to evaluate the performance associated with the interstate, its interchanges, and connecting roadways under the growth scenarios. Together, the high-level corridor scale capacity analyses and microsimulation scale analysis of growth scenarios modeled will provide necessary information for the prioritization and solution identification to follow in the subsequent tasks. Outreach: Meetings and close coordination with P3 staff and consultants working on P3 - Commerce Road Corridor Redevelopment Project; Technical Advisory Committee conference call to review final Vision for the corridor, and provide input on methodology for the growth scenario analysis and future needs assessment. Deliverables: Outreach/Presentation materials; Tech memo summarizing growth scenario analysis and future needs assessment Page 6

7 Task Five: Needs Prioritization The needs evaluation will synthesize the transportations conditions evaluations and the visioning tasks to create a logical and consistent basis from which the project team can create broad scenarios and specific project recommendations in later tasks. The team will: 1. Define needs. The team will develop a set of qualitative and quantitative standards against which to judge the sufficiency of the existing and future system. These standards will encompass metrics such as mobility, accessibility, traffic conditions, safety, infrastructure condition, reliability, environmental conditions, and economic performance. They will be informed by public comments and Policy Advisory Committee inputs, data analysis, and to the degree feasible, comparisons with other similar areas (such as any the P3 team identifies as comparable). The team will consider two types of needs: 1) needs that address immediate deficiencies that will affect any development scenario, and 2) needs that relate to and may restrict existing or future development opportunities. 2. Evaluate/describe needs. The team will create a context for understanding the relative importance of corridor needs by aligning them with factors that we will develop in tandem with the Policy Advisory Committee. Potential factors to consider include the "geographic reach of a need (local, regional), the immediacy of the need, the awareness of the need (how broadly cited by stakeholders), cost feasibility of meeting the need, and the relevance of the need to the vision established for the corridor. As this framework develops, the team will also establish tiers for the needs, based on a rating scheme that the Policy Advisory Committee will help to develop. The Consultant team will develop graphics of the needs and their evaluations to support the prioritization process with the Policy and Technical Advisory Committees. Outreach: Policy Advisory Committee Meeting #3 to review all existing and future need findings from Tasks 1-4, and provide input on prioritization methodology; Meeting #3 with Technical Advisory Committee, and other invited stakeholders to review existing and future need findings from Tasks 1-4, and provide input on prioritization methodology; Public meeting or combination of web outreach tools to gather public input on prioritization of top needs. Deliverables: Presentations and outreach materials for methodology discussions with advisory committees and public; Technical memorandum on prioritization process methodology; Documentation of final prioritized corridor needs. Page 7

8 Task Six: Solution Identification Using the prioritized needs from task 5, the consultant team, in close coordination with the Technical Advisory Committee, will identify project recommendations to serve as potential solutions for top needs. Solutions will be modal-specific and will be drawn initially from existing planning & programming documents such as jurisdictional Master Plans, area plans, corridor studies and CIPs, DRPT Master Rail Plan, DC2RVA Tier I/II and Richmond to Raleigh Tier II; POV s Master Rail Plan; RRPDC CEDS; RRTPO LRTP and TIP; VDOT SYIP; VTrans2040 Needs Assessments for the Richmond region; GRTC TDM plans; and any applicable rail studies including CSX or NS. Interviews with TAC members and other invited stakeholders representing all modal interest will be key to understanding their challenges and needs. The consultant team will work with the TAC to qualitatively screen the universe of potential solutions into a discrete list of candidate alternatives for more detailed study in Task 7. The screening will be based on agreed-upon criteria such as cost, impacts, and feasibility. Outreach: Technical Advisory Committee Meeting #4 and ad-hoc outreach to staff from City of Richmond, Chesterfield County, RRTPO, POV, and other strategic planning staff to safeguard from incongruity of identified solutions with candidate projects from previous local or regional planning efforts. Deliverables: Documentation of project recommendations for prioritized needs; outreach materials for Technical Advisory Committee. Task Seven: Assessment of Solutions In Task 7 the consultant team will provide assessment of the system performance and economic impacts of potential solutions for prioritized needs from Task 6. The assessments will be made at the project level for each of the solutions that address the needs identified in Task 5. This is primarily a modeling and data analysis task performed with input from the Technical Advisory Committee and performed in coordination with P3 staff. The potential solutions from Task 6 will be defined by a series of investment packages and scenarios in order to estimate the impacts across several metrics. Scenarios will include the no-build scenario for comparison with the various investment package solutions. The budget assumes a total of three alternate or incremental investment packages for the Build Scenario. The investment package solutions will vary in scale and in scope which will mean there will be variance in costs and timeframes associated with the various solutions. Together, the investment packages and scenarios will permit the modeling and assessment of the impact of solutions for the prioritized needs from Task 6. The team will model each of the solutions impacts using performance measures to quantify the consequences for congestion mitigation, air quality, safety, accessibility, and economic development. A combination of models will be employed to provide the impact estimates, given the breadth of the impact Page 8

9 analysis to be conducted. A decision matrix will be employed as a mechanism for comparison across the investment packages and scenarios in assessing how they contribute to addressing identified needs. The team will assess the consequences for safety and traffic congestion throughout the roadway network and compare the results to the analyses conducted in Task 4 using the same methods as described in the existing conditions analysis and the Market Opportunity Scenario Analysis (Future No-Build) task. Air quality impacts will be measured by reductions in carbon emissions from vehicles based on estimates of vehicle-miles traveled associated with each of the solutions. The consultant will derive appropriate emissions rates that will be sensitive to congestion levels and the fleet mixture of vehicles. The Synchro/SimTraffic software and CORSIM models will be used as described in Task 2. The accessibility and economic development impacts will be modeled using the TREDIS software. TREDIS will also be used to estimate the economic impacts of the changes in air quality metrics (emissions in tons and emissions value by mode.) The transportation economic impacts will include impacts by industry sector measured in terms of changes in productivity and competitiveness, reflecting changes in supply and demand, and changes in market access for goods and labor. Output, value added (GDP), employment, income, and tax revenue impacts will also be estimated using the TREDIS software. The team will assess wider economic benefits estimated from deriving improvements in market access and transportation system reliability. Together, the performance metrics modeled in this task will provide the information necessary for the subsequent Task 8 characterization of projects to be able to compete for federal, state and/or regional discretionary funding programs. Outreach: Discussion on methodology will take place at the same Technical Advisory Committee Meeting in Task 6 (meeting #4); coordination with P3 staff and consultant team may also be appropriate with this task. Deliverables: Presentation and outreach materials; Technical memorandum of methodology. Task Eight: Identification of Short-, Medium-, Long-Term Solutions In this task, the Baker Team will utilize the results of Task 7 Assessment of Solutions to identify projects of high impact and independent utility that can be implemented very quickly (i.e. low hanging fruit ), projects of high impact that can be implemented in the medium-term 10-year time frame, and long-term project solutions on the 20+ year planning horizon. The focus will be on building a foundation and justification for projects to be competitive in federal, state and/or regional discretionary funding programs. Phasing considerations will include project urgency as well as expediency, cost levels, and complexity of studies required to advance the recommendation. The Consultant will develop criteria for phasing and provide Consumer-Reports style assessment of the solutions to explain the recommended phasing to the Technical and Policy Advisory Committees. Outreach: Technical Advisory Committee (meeting #5) and Policy Advisory Committee (meeting #4) to vet results of Tasks 6-8. Page 9

10 Deliverables: Final list of short-, medium-, and long-term projects. Task Nine: Implementation Plan/Roadmap The Baker Team will summarize funding sources and outline a process for implementation of the short-, medium-, and long-term recommendations developed in Task 8. The implementation roadmap will include an assessment of the timeline to implement each element and will clearly lay out the responsible party/parties for each recommendation. Ongoing activities or next steps that must occur to keep the recommendations on track and additional tasks/studies may also be identified. Of particular note will be the identification of recommendations that appear to be competitive for FASTLANE or TIGER grant funding, with supporting information from the study that would streamline the development of the grant application. It is not a given that project recommendations will be strong candidates for either FASTLANE or TIGER grant funding both programs have unique criteria that certainly will not apply to some of the recommendations but may apply to one or more. For example, the Baker Team is aware from a variety of past grant applications that corridor preservation and improvement projects are challenging, in comparison to new facility construction, for benefit-cost analysis. Additionally, the improvement projects coming out of this analysis may be challenged by the risk that there is not a sufficiently significant national market impacted by the project, which would make it a difficult fit for the FASTLANE program. FASTLANE is also largely geared to very large and/or strictly intermodal projects (i.e., not small-scale projects enhancing access to existing intermodal facilities), so the TIGER grant option should remain in consideration. Finally, other criteria for these grants, particularly with respect to environmental clearance and construction timelines, may require that the recommendations of this study proceed through additional project development prior to being strong candidates for FASTLANE or TIGER grant funding. Outreach: Final wrap-up meeting with Policy Advisory Committee (meeting #5); Public meeting and/or public input solicitation to review of deliverables from Tasks 1-8 Deliverables: Final Roadmap Implementation Plan outlining process to achieve the Vision for the Commerce Corridor, including one or more FASTLANE and/or TIGER grant recommendations with supporting information. Task Ten: Project Coordination Team The Consultant team will undertake ongoing coordination and project direction throughout the study process in consultation with the RRTPO, OIPI and other participants in the study direction. Bi-weekly calls will be held with the Project Coordination Team, and other ad-hoc support as needed to coordinate the study. Outreach: Bi-weekly Project Coordination Team calls, and as needed coordination with other stakeholders and team members. Page 10

11 Deliverables: Materials for calls and general project coordination documentation and products related to the task administration not covered above; final reviews of project deliverables. Task Eleven: Project Management The Baker Team will conduct weekly internal coordination and planning calls to manage the schedule and ensure proper coordination within the team to accomplish tasks. Baker will prepare a work plan summarizing the scope tasks in terms of workflow and schedule to facilitate monitoring and advancing progress on all tasks. The Deputy Project Manager will prepare monthly progress reports in coordination with the Baker Team members. This task includes final production of electronic-format study deliverables. Outreach: Ad-Hoc internal communication, and as needed coordination with other stakeholders. Deliverables: Monthly progress reports and project final deliverables. Page 11

12 QUALIFICATIONS The Baker Team has highly relevant project experience that will benefit this project. Our qualifications include local projects, projects of similar scale and complexity, and particularly a variety of multimodal and intermodal projects that address the transportation needs of key freight or related intermodal facilities. Our experience encompasses all of the skills required for this project including stakeholder engagement, existing conditions analysis, traffic engineering, traffic impact analysis, travel demand modeling, traffic simulation modeling, economic modeling, market analysis for freight facilities, air quality analysis, rail assessment and planning, scenario analysis, project prioritization and phasing, and Page 12

13 developing attractive and useful final report deliverables. A sampling of our relevant project qualifications is provided on the pages that follow. Page 13