Allan Zafft with the city of Grand Island stands next to a timeline for completing a city long-range transportation plan, (Carol Bryant, Central Nebraska Today)
GRAND ISLAND – The city of Grand Island moved one step closer to updating its long-range transportation plan at a two-hour open house to get public comment Feb. 6 at the Grand Island Public Library.
Allan Zafft, MPO Program Manager in the city’s Public Works Department, said the purpose of the meeting was “to get public comments for the development of the 2025 long-range transportation plan.”
“We update this every five years,” he said. “This is the third update. It’s federally required. We’re in our early phase.”
The 2050 Long Range Transportation Plan is a 25-year plan that guides transportation system decision making for the Grand Island area and provides a list of transportation projects that meet future transportation needs in the region.
The transportation system includes highways, streets, transit, freight, bicycles, and pedestrians.
The final plan will include strategies to address multimodal transportation issues and needs and a prioritized list of projects based on funding, technical analysis, and input received from Grand Island area residents.
The city wants to identify goals for transportation for the future of Grand Island.
One of the major outcomes of the last transportation plan is the number of city roads projects that have been completed.
The city is able to incorporate information about public transit, biking, and pedestrian transportation from plans prepared about them, he said.
“We want to get input from the community to help us develop the plan,” he said.
A handful of participants was present at the start of the two-hour meeting. People could give input about transportation priorities. Each person was given three stick-on dots to put on a display board to vote for their transportation priorities. People were also given sticky notes to write input for a SWOT analysis.
People may send comments about the transportation plan to comments@gi2050.com. The website for the transportation plan is www.gi2050.com. Comments also can be mailed to Allan Zafft, City of Grand Island, P.O. Box 1968, Grand Island, NE 68802. Comments and survey responses will be collected through Feb. 21.
Federal law requires that any urbanized area with a population over 50,000 people to have a Metropolitan Planning Organization that carries out multi-modal transportation planning, such as a long-range transportation plan. The Grand Island Metropolitan Planning Organization is the official metropolitan planning organization that serves as the formal transportation planning body for the Grand Island metropolitan planning area.
