About Us

COG is the one place in metropolitan Washington that regularly brings leaders together to develop solutions to the region's major challenges. COG prepares plans enabling the region to receive federal funding, provides members with research and data to inform decision-making, and offers a wide range of programs, including commuter services, cooperative purchasing, technical assistance and grants, and public outreach campaigns.

Transportation

Through the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board (TPB), area officials, planners, and engineers ensure a well-managed and maintained transportation system. The TPB, which is staffed by COG, conducts the federally mandated transportation planning process for the region and ensures the uninterrupted flow of federal transportation funds that area jurisdictions receive.

Environment

COG's work engages leaders in various environmental fields from water quality experts to climate scientists. Together, they are advancing regional efforts to restore local waterways, improve air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address climate change, promote recycling, and enhance and preserve green space and agriculture.

Community

Area officials and experts, including planning and housing directors and child welfare and health officials, work together with their counterparts at COG to help shape stronger communities throughout the region.

Homeland Security & Public Safety

COG brings police chiefs, fire chiefs, emergency managers, and other leaders together as part of its work to strengthen regional public safety coordination, homeland security planning, and emergency communication.

Transportation

Highway Pavement and Bridge Conditions

The final rule for highway pavement condition and bridge condition was published on January 18, 2017 and became effective date on May 20, 2017. The targets for Highway Pavement and Bridge condition is as follows; for Pavement it is the percentage of pavement on both the Interstate and National Highway Systems that is in good or poor condition; for bridges it is the percentage of National Highways System bridges in good or poor condition. State DOTs adopted state targets on October 1, 2018. The TPB adopted targets for pavement and bridges in the metropolitan planning area on July 18, 2018.

A report detailing the methodologies and the TPB adopted targets can be found here.

A companion highway asset management plan rule has also been published. The State DOTs are working on their asset management plans which will inform future planning of highway and bridge preservation projects. These asset management plans are due to FHWA by October 2018.

TPB staff have completed several analyses of the region’s Bridge and Pavement data, available through the National Bridge Inventory (NBI) and the Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS). The most recent results for the region were presented at the July 2018 Technical Committee meeting, after the 2017 bridge data became available in January 2018. A one-page summary sheet was developed to report the pavement and bridge conditions. In addition to showing the required performance measures (good and poor condition), the summary sheet also provides background information such as lane-miles of Interstate and Non-Interstate NHS, the top 3 deficient bridges, and ownership of the Non-Interstate NHS. This information has been aggregated for the TPB planning area but is also provided for Suburban Maryland and Northern Virginia and for each jurisdiction in the region.

A map site for the current pavement and bridge conditions has been developed:

In addition to the map site, staff are updating the Regional Data Clearinghouse to provide data files and GIS layers for use by any interested party.