MPO staff seeks approval to form a short-term task force for 2055 small-area forecasts

MPO staff asked the board for agreement to convene a temporary task force to help prepare small-area forecasts required for the 2055 plan. The task force would include local experts — chambers, economic development officials, water boards and city/county planning staff — and would disband once it completed allocations of households and jobs into updated Transportation Analysis Zones (TAZs).

"One of the tools that we need is the travel demand model...we're going to have to update our TAZs and then use the Texas demographic center's forecast for our population control total, and allocate population into those TAZs and also allocate jobs into those TAZs," the staff member said. Staff emphasized that forecasting a population decline is particularly uncertain and suggested using the Texas Demographic Center high/low bounds and supplementing with more frequent private forecasts such as Woods & Poole.

Board members asked staff to consider near-term spikes (for example, construction associated with AI data centers) and the geographic impacts across Taylor, Jones and Callahan counties. Staff said they would begin convening the task force and anticipated needing a chair-signed invitation letter to formalize participation.