Formerly called Orange County Transportation Council, the agency is tasked with planning and coordinating county transportation projects funded by federal dollars.
Its federally mandated annual planning activities follow a fiscal year cycle that runs from April 1 to March 31 of the following year.
County planning commissioner Alan Sorensen, whose department staffs the transportation council, said he aimed to hire a consulting firm this year to identify high-crash locations and suggest ways to cut both the number and severity of traffic accidents.
Such a study will help unlock more federal road improvement funds for projects in the county, Mr. Sorensen told The Epoch Times.
“That kind of moves it up our priority list,” he said.
The second planning priority is a commissioned study to guide future business and traffic growth along the State Route 17M (and Route 6) corridor in the towns of Goshen and Wawayanda.
“It is just an area where there is a lot of growth already occurring,” Mr. Sorensen said, citing the Royal Wine construction and several approved warehouses.
“We want to improve the traffic flow and make it easier to walk and bike along the corridor so that we can accommodate the growth in a way that doesn’t lead to congestion.”
If his staff gets to the above two and still has bandwidth left, they will take on a third study on how to systematically expand bus stops and routes in the county, he said.
The county transportation council has been allocated close to $1 million in federal planning funds from the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration for the 2024–25 fiscal year.
Unused federal planning money will be carried over to the following year. The agency currently has a carry-over balance of close to $3 million.
“We will get to as many of these studies as we can this year, but we are dealing with staffing shortages and other projects that are currently in the works,” Mr. Sorensen said.
A major priority already on the agency’s plate is the ongoing purchase of the Schunnemunk Trail property; it also plans to send out a request for a proposal for trail design in the new fiscal year.
The trail property purchase from the Open Space Institute costs close to $2.4 million, with 80 percent of it paid for by federal money; the county shares about 10 percent of the price.
While working on transportation council priorities, the planning department staff must also conduct regular county planning work, such as revising the 10-year-old Open Space Plan this year.
Last year, the department staff finished revamping the county comprehensive plan and added two new chapters about bikeways and climate resilience.
“We are getting a lot completed, but there is still an awful lot to do,” Mr. Sorensen said.
