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MetroPlan unveils Metro Plan Connect mapping tool to prioritize 2,000 regional projects
Summary
MetroPlan executive director described "Metro Plan Connect," a GIS‑based prioritization tool compiling roughly 2,000 projects from 42 regional plans to help partners filter projects by crash history, funding eligibility and public support; tool aims for partner availability by September.
Kate Morley, executive director of MetroPlan, briefed the advisory committee on a regional project‑prioritization effort called Metro Plan Connect, a GIS tool that compiles projects from 42 adopted plans in the greater Flagstaff region and creates overlays and simple scoring filters to help partners cull the long list and prioritize projects for funding.
"Our project is called Metro Plan Connect," Morley said, describing a consultant review that extracted about 2,000 projects across area plans and noted that roughly 1,400 of those appear in the Active Transportation Master Plan (ATMP). Morley said the tool will be publicly available to partners and will allow filters for safety, funding program eligibility, public support and other project characteristics.
She described practical use cases: pavement‑preservation staff can check planned projects before repaving to add low‑cost bike or pedestrian improvements; capital planners can filter projects by grant type; and partners can overlay crash databases and counts of how many plans identified a project to estimate public support. MetroPlan intends a quick timeline and hopes to make the tool available to partners by September.
Committee members asked whether all 42 plans were active and how the ranking would handle older or completed projects; Morley said the project list is being refined by the committee to remove projects that are done or are no longer relevant. Members also discussed ranking outputs and whether the tool would produce a single definitive score or a shortlist that staff could review; Morley said the tool is intended to cull the list to a manageable short list for local critical review rather than to replace local judgment.
Discussion included examples of rapid changes enabled by coordination (adding striping or bike lanes when a pavement preservation window opens) and project dependencies such as Army Corps flood control work that affects a Rio bridge/tunnel timeline. No formal votes were taken on the tool at this meeting; staff will report back with progress over the summer.
