Long-Term Transportation Planning Underway in Northeast Ohio

"A new long-term transportation plan for Northeast Ohio should be drafted by the end of the year," reports Ginger Christ, who also details the proceedings of the community outreach process for the plan, led by the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency (NOACA), which is the Metropolitan Planning Organization for Cuyahoga, Lake, Geauga, Lorain and Medina counties.

The message NOACA heard at a hearing last week: "For too long, Northeast Ohio has been auto-centric, favoring those with the ability to drive across the five-county region covered by NOACA…. And such a transportation system creates an inequality among those without cars, who rely on public transit and alternative modes of transport to move around the area."

The attendees sharing these opinions might have been preaching to choir: NOACA is one of the larger institutions to adopt a "fix it first" approach to transportation infrastructure.