Development and population growth are driving the need for transportation improvements in the Morgantown-Monongalia region of West Virginia. Burgess & Niple (B&N) assisted the Morgantown-Monongalia Metropolitan Planning Organization (MMMPO) with the development of a multimodal Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP) for the area.
Physical constraints caused by the region’s topography and other factors make traditional roadway widening improvements difficult and expensive. As a result, an important focus of the plan was to reduce vehicular demand by incorporating pedestrian, bicycle and transit modes. The multimodal approach also was influenced by the large student population from nearby West Virginia University.
A stakeholder and public involvement process was used to develop transportation goals for the region. These public meetings were followed by a design charrette at which the project team brainstormed and discussed improvement ideas within a range of funding scenarios.
The LRTP was developed concurrently with two additional comprehensive plans for the City of Morgantown and the Town of Star City, for which B&N was also the prime consultant. A common visioning process was used as the basis for all three plans to provide a strong cohesive approach. B&N worked collaboratively with a comprehensive planning sub-consultant to develop consistent but separate planning documents for all three agencies.
The draft and final plans provided by B&N included a high level of detail, including preliminary engineering reviews and cost estimates for potential projects. The final Morgantown-Monongalia LRTP can be viewed at http://plantogether.org/.