MPO board accepts updated congestion management plan, flags nine hotspots and school-area peaks

The Hernando–Citrus Metropolitan Planning Organization board on June 4 accepted an updated Congestion Management Process, a data-driven plan that identifies recurring traffic bottlenecks and recommends operational and multimodal strategies to reduce congestion and improve safety.

Consultant Wally Blaine of Benesch said the update used near‑real‑time bottleneck data and the MPO’s travel demand model to screen 26 potential hotspots and narrow the list to nine corridors for further study. "We filtered those using a couple of different metrics," Blaine said, noting the team flagged locations where the volume‑to‑capacity ratio exceeded about 1.2 or where a segment appeared among the top recurring bottlenecks. The CMP is designed as a high‑level screening step; engineering‑level work will be needed to develop specific projects.

Why it matters: the CMP is a federal and state planning requirement for metropolitan planning organizations and helps prioritize projects and investments that can deliver quicker congestion relief than large capacity builds. Blaine emphasized short‑term and lower‑cost measures — improved signal coordination, access management, intersection operations and better transit or school coordination — as ways to reduce congestion without widening roadways.

The report highlighted school‑period traffic as a common source of the worst congestion: many corridors in both counties show afternoon peaks around 2:15 p.m. "What we found from that is most of the congestion that's happening... are around the 2:15 time period of the day," Blaine said, adding that the MPO should explore partnerships with school transportation officials and Safe Routes to School funding where appropriate. Councilman Robert Holmes urged careful local review of the corridor descriptions and their mapping to schools; Holmes asked for specific page references for the corridor summaries and stressed the need to align recommended objectives with the CMP table of goals.

Board action and next steps: after public comment was closed without speakers, the board voted to accept the CMP and authorized staff to pursue the next steps, including corridor‑level evaluations, monitoring federally required performance measures and coordinating with local technical staff and school districts. The consultant recommended programming corridor and intersection studies and adding CMP elements to other projects when possible (for example, including signal improvements during resurfacing or capacity projects).

Funding and implementation: Blaine and staff noted that many recommended measures are lower‑cost than full widening projects but still require local coordination and funding. The board discussed using Safe Routes to School grants, federal/state programs and local matching funds to advance shovel‑ready projects.

The MPO accepted the CMP by voice/roll‑call vote; staff will finalize the document and post the final version for public use.