MOVE Lorain County Coordinated Transportation Plan goes forward

A plan to improve Lorain County transportation is moving forward.

Mobility and Opportunity for a Vibrant Economy, also known as MOVE Lorain County, hosted its final coordinated transportation meeting Sept. 27 at Lorain County Community College, 1005 N. Abbe Road in Elyria.

The months-long public input process has sought to elicit feedback from a broad and diverse segment of Lorain County on local transportation needs to understand where the gaps in service are.

In the process of developing a five-year plan on Lorain County transportation needs, area stakeholders presented a series of goals in the final opportunity to provide feedback.

The Lorain County Coordinated Transportation Plan wants to build upon present services available and increase public awareness and build toward improvements.

In developing a series of goals in key focus, MOVE wants to establish a Lorain County specific transportation plan targeting: marketing/promotion of transportation options; developing relationships and partnerships between the community and public/private entities; data collection; and modernizing transportation services.

In doing so, Sharon Pearson, a mobility management consultant with MOVE, said the plan is placing emphasis on the elderly, people with disabilities and those living in rural areas.

“How can we work with local leaders,” Pearson said. “There’s data collection and planning. We need to continue to gather data on services and information on trips.

“Because that’s when the coordination actually begins; when we have all this data. We’ve been collecting some of this for the Coordinated Transportation Plan, but we’re not done and we will continually work on gathering this data, and we need to figure out how we’re going to do that.”

The draft

A draft of the plan will be completed by Oct. 22 at which point a 30-day public review period will open allowing citizens to read the plan and provide additional comments and feedback.

MOVE will seek letters of support from agencies and organizations during this period, Pearson said.

MOVE also has explored looking at integrating local ride sharing options including Gohio Commute and Enterprise Rideshare in expanding on the possibilities of what Lorain County transportation could look like, she said.

“One of the other things that we’re going to probably want to do, which is a question that the Coordinated Transportation Plan asks, is what other innovative transportation things can we come up with that is unique to Lorain County?” Pearson asked.

The final draft of the plan will be presented to be the Ohio Department of Transportation in late November and officially submitted by Dec. 1.

A transportation survey sent out to Lorain County residents with 691 respondents provided some unexpected results.

In the category ranking the top five places respondents need to go, work and school did not factor in. The top places were going to the grocery store, visiting a doctor, going to a drug store, visiting family and friends and getting to a department store.

In terms of locations people want to travel to, respondents emphasized social activities, citing parks, including Lakeview Park and Lorain County Metro Parks, in addition to Avon Commons and Oberlin.

Additionally, 335 respondents were unaware of transportation services available in Lorain County.

“How can we work with local leaders?” — Sharon Pearson, a mobility management consultant with MOVE