Central Rotary’s own Jessica Mortinger was the speaker at the January 15 meeting, telling the club about her work as a transportation planner with Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO).
Jessica works with a network of committees and groups in a variety of ways. She and her supervisor conduct surveys, prepare flyers and releases, create long range transportation plans, do population projections and update existing situations to name a few of their functions.
Her work is funded out of a consolidated grant program, rather than by the city of Lawrence, and some federal funding is also involved.
“We’re stewards of public money so it requires our processes to be up to standard.” she said. “We maintain and update regional planning regularly. We have a technical advisory committee of public officials and a city/county advisory committee.” They also work with a regional transit advisers committee.
“We bring people together to find out what they want through open houses, public meetings and surveys,” Jessica said. “Getting people concerned on the local level helps us see where we should work. While politics is a reality of planning and we have to incorporate financial reality, what we really want is to get people where they need to go, safely.”
Future projects include bikeway expansion and pedestrian issues such as accessing transit and crosswalks.
