Published: December 29, 2023
Bartow, Fla. (Dec. 29, 2023) — Polk County’s Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) received notification this month that the county’s TPO will receive certification for another four years from the Federal Highway Administration. The primary purpose of a certification review is to formalize the continuing oversight and evaluation of the transportation planning process.
In September 2023, the Federal Highway and Federal Transit partners conducted a site visit to access Polk County’s federal transportation planning requirements. Federal Law requires the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to jointly certify the transportation planning processes of Transportation Management Areas at least every four years. The last certification review was completed in January 2020.
A federal certification review generally consists of four primary activities: a site visit, a review of planning documents before the site visit, the development and issuance of a FHWA/FTA certification report and a certification review closeout presentation to the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) governing board.
Noteworthy is that the Federal Review Team recognized seven best practices, identified no corrective actions and offered no recommendations the county should consider for improving its planning processes. Polk’s noteworthy practices are related to the TPO’s work on Bicycle and Pedestrian Planning, Lakeland Area Mass Transit District’s (LAMTD) Veterans Transportation and Community Living Initiative, LAMTD’s “The Squeeze” Transit, TPO’s Safe Streets and Roads for All federal grant application and other public outreach efforts.
The City of Lakeland’s efforts to enhance multi-use trails, multiple complete streets projects in the west Lakeland area are also noted as one of the best practices.
For more information on TPO and to see the planning documents, go to www.polktpo.com.