Draft multimodal plan due July 13; advisory groups to review and weigh in during August

Pam Van Heine, a PAC representative on Arlington’s Transportation Future Advisory Group, told the joint meeting that the draft Multimodal Transportation Plan (MTP) will be released Monday, July 13, and that both committees should focus review and comments during August.

“We will send out the links to it as soon as we get it, and both committees will focus on our responses during August,” Pam said. She outlined the plan’s structure — overview and background, a vision and goals framework, a guidance framework of policies and strategies, network guidance (including curb-lane hierarchy and transit/bike/ped priorities), and implementation guidance for corridors and CIP planning.

Pam identified topics PAC and BAC members should scrutinize: whether staff accepted advisory recommendations for strategies, the pedestrian priority map and sidewalk clear-zone widths, new street typologies and how they affect bike/ped space, proposed metrics, and the lack of currently visible design standards. She flagged the curb-lane hierarchy as new material that warrants study: “Transportation safety is the number 1 point…people always have to be able to get across from the street over the curb onto the sidewalk,” she said.

Pam urged members to attend public engagements (pop-ups and "chat with the planner" sessions) and to submit comments through the public feedback form; she noted an August/September window for commission review and hoped for board consideration later in the year. Committee members offered specific concerns (local sidewalk and bike-route assignments, design standards, and preservation of key metrics) and agreed to circulate comments internally before submitting them to staff.