FALMOUTH – Falmouth selectmen and the planning board are considering bringing back the old transportation advisory committee to assist and consolidate efforts to improve traffic planning in Falmouth.
“We continue to really struggle with it. Every summer it seems like it’s the hot issue, then we make it through the summer and then forget about it for a while. But it’s really an important time to have this conversation,” said Selectmen Chairwoman Megan English Braga.
Though Town Manager Julian Suso said the transportation management commission is not a new program and already has existing framework within the town’s administration, it lost its main purpose and ability to function after its members resigned several years ago.
English Braga also said that it is a “complex layering” of board and state approval processes that are required for planning policies, currently.
“Even when you have a great citizen advisory committee put something together, at the end of the day even if this board thinks it’s an amazing work product, the state still has that approval,” she said.
The transportation committee functions mostly as an advisory committee to the board.
Its primary goal is to identify and recommend course of actions in respect to the use of motor vehicles, pedestrian traffic, and bicycle use within Falmouth.
“The selectmen were looking for some kind of coordination where we don’t look at transportation issues in a vacuum by project. Where there’s some kind of policy development that developers come to—the transportation committee for example—so that there’s a town-wide policy and coordination,” said Selectman Susan Moran.
“Congestion slows people and hampers people from their jobs, so in terms of economic development and climate change, they all meet at transportation. Whether you’re biking, whether you’re having driver-less cars, whether you’re looking at the CCRTA… I think it’s a great idea, that the planning board brings up, to have a body that coordinates all these things rather than piecemealing it.”
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