OVER — Complete Streets, sustainable communities and transit-ready development are progressive planning concepts that could shape the Dover and Kent County area toward easier mobility.
These concepts are in the latest draft of the Dover/Kent County Metropolitan Planning Organization’s Regional Transportation plan.
The MPO has conducted an analysis of future transportation needs and compiled a list of projects. Now, the group is ready to take the list on the road to share with municipalities and community organizations.
“It’s essential that we share our Regional Transportation Plan with the communities that it will serve,” said MPO Executive Director Juanita Wieczoreck. “We want to be sure that we have identified the region’s transportation needs and the priority projects to be funded with the limited resources available.”
Staff hopes to present a draft of its Regional Transportation Plan to Kent County towns and cities within the first few weeks of January.
The Regional Transportation Plan defines how the region’s transportation system will develop over the next 20 years. This type of plan, which is updated every four years, is required by the U.S. Department of Transportation as a prerequisite for federal funding. It must be developed through a process that includes input from the public and private sectors and coordination with local and state plans.
Transit-ready development is a concept to develop communities that are more easily served by public transit.
The Sustainable Communities concept supports the continuation of good quality of life.
Complete Streets, a new term, describes streets that are designed with all potential users — bicyclists, pedestrians, the disabled and transit — in mind.
Any municipality or community organization that is interested in a presentation may contact the Dover/Kent County MPO at (302) 760-2713 or by e-mail at juanita.wieczoreck@state.de.us.
Kate Layton
Public Liaison
Dover/Kent County MPO
(302) 760-2712
A little about the MPO: The Dover/Kent County MPO, located in Dover, is a federally funded, federally mandated, not for profit agency that is responsible for coordinating transportation planning and programming in Kent County. We work with the state, cities and towns within Kent County, Kent County government and others on transportation topics. Plans and programs adopted by the MPO outline how federal transportation dollars are spent. There are MPO’s all over the country. Since the mid-1970’s, the federal government has mandated that urbanized areas with more than 50,000 people have an MPO. The Dover/Kent County MPO office opened in the early 1990’s.
