Thursday, November 17, 2011

Wyoming DOT Says No More Highway Expansion, Just Maintenance

Thanks to Bike to Work Barb for this article: Proof that the age of highways in America is coming to an end? Wyoming Department of Transportation officials say the agency is turning its resources toward maintenance of its existing highways and will quit expanding highways. At least until new revenue can be found, anyway.

The WYDOT Director likened the move to entering "survival mode." DC Streets Blog has the whole story.

2 comments:

Charles said...

Well limited resources means cutbacks somewhere, is it better to build new roads or maintain those you already have?? I think they made a wise decision to maintain those roads they already have and when the economy picks up again then maybe they can build new roads again.

SRTC Staff said...

I think it was the obvious choice to make, its just that most DOTs aren't saying that out loud. I think priorities are changing a lot too, and even when the economy picks up, a lot of people aren't going to be as interested in building new roads as they used to be. That's what I'm hearing when I'm out talking to people anyway, but you know as well as I do how things like that can change year to year or depending on the politcal environment.


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SRTC is the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Spokane County. Urbanized areas with populations exceeding 50,000 people are required to have an MPO. SRTC was formed to address the county's transportation planning needs. It provides coordination in planning between the public, cities, small towns, the county, the state, transit providers, and tribes.

SRTC offers services including transportation monitoring, transportation modeling, census information analysis, travel demand forecasting, historical traffic count analysis, geographic information systems, and trip generation rates.