The MPO asks for Public Comment on 2024 Funding Applications and General Values

Yesterday our Metropolitan Planning Organization, SKATS, sent out an announcement soliciting public comment on a social media style map for evaluating projects in the 2024-2029 cycle and a more general survey on transportation and values.

Comment map for ranking 2024-2029 funding

Planners have used the map exercise before, and it was a real advance on soliciting public comment. So they are doing it again. Apparently word went out early in Turner, and the two Delaney Road projects have already accumulated the hearts. One person spammed the general comments with an intense dislike for biking and busing, as well as more third bridge propaganda. The giant ellipse for the South Salem Transit Center is also a little misleading.

Non-urban interests sometimes overweighted
in the Metropolitan Planning org (May 2021)

But consider taking a moment to "like" or add comments on projects you think are particularly valuable or are not valuable.

The survey has some good questions and is also worth taking the time to complete. It even has a specific response on greenhouse gas emissions.

A ranking exercise in a separate survey

In the introductory materials, they refer to the TIP as a "short range plan" and to the MTP as a "long range plan," and this seems like a useful distinction for conversation in plain language. That's nice to see.

And parenthetically, a couple of studies since we are talking about attitudes and values in the two surveys, and what people say and what they do are not always in alignment:

• "Do attitudes cause behavior or vice versa? An alternative conceptualization of the attitude-behavior relationship in travel behavior modeling"
• "Travel attitudes or behaviours: Which one changes when they conflict?"

For previous notes on the project applications see here, here, and here.