MVPC is holding three kick-off meetings around the region to discuss the content of Regional Transportation Plan (RTP), how they intend to develop the document so that the MPO can adopt the new plan in March 2011, and most importantly to listen to any suggestions or observations that you may have that should be considered in the document. Consider attending one of these three sessions:
- January 28, 2010 at 6:30 p.m. at Salisbury Town Hall, Colchester Room, 5 Beach Street, Salisbury, MA
- February 2, 2010 at 6:30 p.m. at 60 Island Street, Lawrence, 1st floor (same building as Groundwork Lawrence)
- February 4, 2010 at 6:30 p.m. at Haverhill City Hall, Room 301, Main Street, Haverhill, MA
Light refreshments will be served; call Andy Komornick at MVPC for more infromation: (978) 374-0519.
The Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) is the cornerstone of the transportation planning process. While many people focus their attention on the MPO’s project programming tool, the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), it is the RTP where a region’s transportation priorities are established, where existing and potential problems with the transportation network are identified, where future travel demand is forecast and where studies that address these issues are first recommended. The recommendations and findings included in the Plan are then moved to implementation usually as studies that get included in the region’s Unified Planning Work Program, and then ultimately as projects that get programmed for implementation in the TIP. However, while we often tell people that any project or program that is to be implemented using federal transportation funding must appear in the TIP, the importance of the RTP can be found in the fact that no important transportation project can appear in the TIP without also being in the Regional Transportation Plan.