Maintaining the current transportation system and preparing for future transportation needs involves considerable planning.  To prepare, the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization (HRTPO) develops a regional blueprint, or Long-Range Transportation Plan (LRTP) to maximize the use of scarce transportation resources in promoting system efficiency.  The LRTP is updated on a regular basis in order to assess the current transportation system and reflect new planning priorities, population and employment projections, changes in the economy, and anticipated travel demand.  The current LRTP, adopted in July 2016, has a planning horizon year of 2040.  HRTPO staff is currently updating the LRTP to the planning horizon year of 2045.

In order to determine the best alternatives to effectively address future regional needs, HRTPO staff developed a draft list of candidate projects for consideration in the 2045 LRTP.  This list was developed using various sources including the current 2040 LRTP and Regional Vision Plan, HRTPO planning studies, public input received via a web-based public survey, and locality and regional stakeholder input received from HRTPO advisory committees.  Following the candidate project solicitation period, HRTPO staff collected 525 potential candidate projects.

As part of the development of the list of candidate projects, HRTPO staff applied a two-part screening process: 1) LRTP Applicability and 2) Locality Compatibility.  For the LRTP Applicability screen, HRTPO staff reviewed candidate project submissions through a regional significance lens.  Typically, projects deemed regionally significant are required to be listed individually in the LRTP (smaller scoped projects are not held to this requirement; therefore, they are automatically considered to be consistent with the LRTP).  In addition, HRTPO staff checked for sufficient project information to ensure the candidate could be evaluated, and for duplication/overlap with other candidate project submissions.  For the Locality Compatibility screen, LRTP Subcommittee members reviewed candidate project submissions to ensure project suggestions are compatible with local comprehensive plans.  After applying the LRTP project screening process, the draft list reduced to 309 candidate projects to be evaluated for inclusion in the 2045 LRTP.

The Draft 2045 LRTP List of Candidate Projects is under a public and comment review period (January 16, 2020 – February 14, 2020).  To assist in obtaining the public’s feedback, a short survey on the draft list of candidate projects is hosted on the HRTPO website (click here to access the survey. Survey period has closed.).  Please take a moment to review this list and share your thoughts with us (please send comments to Theresa K. Brooks, Transportation Engineer III, tbrooks@hrtpo.org).