Valdosta-Lowndes MPO 2050 Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP)

Southern Georgia Regional Commission

In association with Metro Analytics (MA), Jack Faucett Analytics staff led the Valdosta-Lowndes MPO 2050 MTP Update. Rob Schiffer served as the project manager. The 2050 MTP Update addressed new Federal MTP requirements and integrated newly enacted local funding mechanisms. This was VLMPO’s first plan to take a fully multi-modal approach to project identification and prioritization. The project included a rigorous assessment of existing conditions for active transportation, transit, on-demand mobility, and other options, as well as future forecasting. The Financially Constrained MTP includes studies of new route transit service, electric vehicle charging stations, over 30 active transportation projects, ITS and signalization projects, and considerations for improved safety, bridge, and pavement conditions.

The plan included an innovative approach to outreach focused on historically underserved communities. Dr. Gabrielle Westcott and Alden Copley brought a special equity emphasis to the project by implementing their innovative Historical Equity Action Lens (HEAL), in which historians and ethnographers worked closely with the community to address the development of unmet needs for the non-driving population, including on-demand mobility, walkability, and other needs addressed in the plan. The HEAL team conducted a wide range of primary and secondary source research, capture, and synthesis, culminating in a historical equity assessment of the transportation system in Valdosta-Lowndes County region that enhanced community engagement efforts and supplemented the existing conditions and prioritization components of the LRTP report. In addition to co-directing the HEAL effort, Dr. Westcott conducted research in local archives, conducted a walk-through and informal oral history of important spaces in Valdosta’s historically Black neighborhood of Southside, recorded ten oral history interviews with community members, and co-led a public forum in the Southside neighborhood involving approximately twenty com munity participants. The HEAL findings were incorporated into the Existing Conditions Report of the LRTP, offering guidance on project prioritization and guiding the development of new projects in the Southside neighborhood.

HEAL ArcGIS StoryMap: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/a76da8189ef6493fa2035c649bdbbc2b