A meeting was held yesterday involving members of the Regional Transportation Alliance of Southwestern Pennsylvania and Indiana county-based stakeholders.
The main topic of discussion was a plan for better transportation in the 10-county region, including Indiana County. That was broken down into seven principles including optimizing existing assets, prioritizing connections to jobs and education, embracing new operating models, making flexible “future-proof” investments, adopting best management practices, supporting multiple mobility options and operating as an integrated system. Ken Zapinski of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development talked about getting many ideas from groups large and small. They basically asked “what is the biggest problem?” to the groups, and were able to identify 50 ideas to work on.
Jim Struzzi of the Indiana County Chamber of Commerce, is the county’s private sector representative to the alliance, and said that their goal was to truly make it a regional plan. While the region will be aided with these ideas, one idea that directly impacts Indiana County would be improvements to Route 422.
You can take a look at the complete plan by logging on to the alliance’s website, www.regionaltransportationalliance.org
