NVTA to meet people where they are to take views on transpo improvemnts

Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA) is launching a widespread effort this spring to find out specifically what Northern Virginians want in their future transportation network.

The NVTA project team will appear at a wide variety of public places, going where large numbers of the public congregate to make it easy for residents to voice their views on what would improve transportation in Northern Virginia.

“We’re taking it to the streets and fanning out across Northern Virginia,” said Martin E. Nohe, Chairman of the NVTA and a member of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors. “We want to make it as easy as possible for our residents to help shape their transportation future – and that of their children and grandchildren.”

In lieu of traditional public meetings, the NVTA’s spring workshops and “pop-up events” (one is June 4, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. at the Manassas Railway Heritage Festival) are designed to capture feedback from a broad range of residents where they live, work and play. This input will help guide the NVTA’s development of TransAction, the 25-year transportation plan for Northern Virginia.

Between April and June, the project team will appear at more than a dozen locations, including Metrorail stations, festivals, community centers including Manassas Park Community Center on Saturday, May 21, from 10 a.m. to noon, parades, shopping hubs, senior centers and places of worship. Sites have been chosen that are geographically spread across Northern Virginia to gain representative input from all NVTA jurisdictions.

The outreach effort follows the release last fall of a scientific public opinion survey that revealed insights on what Northern Virginians think about their current transportation network and what they desire for the future. The poll found that Northern Virginians’ top priority is reducing trip times, followed by making transportation services more affordable.

In addition to public input, the transportation plan update will utilize the most current available data and employ best practices from across the U.S. and internationally. It will deliver a multi-modal vision for transportation improvements in Northern Virginia, serving as the mechanism through which more than $1.7 billion will be allocated to regional transportation investments from 2018 to 2023.

Additionally, the update will model alternative futures to represent the ways in which rapidly evolving technologies will change the way people travel and shape Northern Virginia’s future transportation network.

Those who are unable to attend the following in-person events are invited to visit http://nvtatransaction.org/contact/ and provide their input. The NVTA will carry out an additional wave of outreach in the fall of 2016.