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Transportation committee approves UPWP amendment, interlocal agreement to study commuter transit demand
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Summary
The Lubbock Transportation Policy Committee approved a budget amendment adding subtask 2.11 to the Unified Planning Work Program and authorized an interlocal agreement with the South Plains Association of Governments to produce a regional travel demand forecast, with TxDOT approval still pending.
The Lubbock Metropolitan Planning Organization Transportation Policy Committee on May 20 approved a budget amendment to add subtask 2.11 to the 2025–26 Unified Planning Work Program and authorized an interlocal agreement with the South Plains Association of Governments to develop a regional travel demand forecast.
The amendment earmarks $25,500 for phase 1 (2025–26) and $14,830 for phase 2 (2026–27) to support a commuter demand forecast and related technical assistance, Mr. Jones said. The committee voted to approve the budget amendment 5–0. The committee also voted to implement the interlocal governmental cooperative agreement between SPAG and the Lubbock MPO; committee members approved that motion with no recorded opposition.
The amendment and agreement are intended to help SPAG and rural transit providers collect survey and roadway data, produce heat maps and geospatial analysis, and calibrate a commuter travel demand model that could feed into the MPO’s existing travel demand model. Mr. Jones said the work will examine commuter behavior and the flow of economic-development travel across the SPAG region and could support requests for additional fleet funding. “We have sponsored the required 2 public outreach activities with no adverse comments,” Mr. Jones said.
The interlocal agreement divides the work into two phases covering different subsets of the SPAG region: nine counties in phase 1 and six counties in phase 2, Mr. Jones told the committee. SPAG’s attorney has reviewed the agreement and staff said they are awaiting approval from the Texas Department of Transportation before the agreement is finalized. Committee members asked questions about how commuter patterns outside Lubbock would be handled; one member observed that most commuter concentration is “in Lubbock and the immediate environs” but accepted the regional requirement for the coordinated planning effort.
No substantive amendments to the scope or budget were made at the meeting. The committee’s action authorizes the MPO to advance the amended UPWP and the interlocal agreement package to TxDOT for further action.
