Planners review draft transportation plan; staff says safety topped public priorities while online participation was low

Morrisville staff and consultants returned to the Planning and Zoning Board with a progress report on the town's draft Comprehensive Transportation Plan (CTP), presenting outreach results, the prioritized project list and proposed roadway cross sections. Brett Martin, the town's transportation project manager, introduced the update and said the project is in the action-plan and documentation phase.

Consultant Christina Whitfield (Kimley-Horn) summarized public engagement and findings: one formal public meeting, two pop-up events, roughly 100 in-person conversations, 45 completed online surveys and 10 interactive map respondents. She said modal priorities differed by engagement channel: the online survey showed pedestrian projects, intersections and roadways as the top three, while in-person events favored transit, bicycle and pedestrian priorities. "Safety and accessibility were underscored quite a lot in some of those conversations," Whitfield told the board.

Staff said they used public feedback to help weight prioritization criteria (safety, congestion, connectivity, activity center access and benefit-cost). The evaluation kept public outreach as a smaller percentage of the score (about 4%) to avoid over-weighting a small sample. The highest-ranked town-specific priorities included Morrisville Parkway access-management and safety improvements, several NC 54 widening segments (some outside town limits but with local implications), Davis Drive/BRT-related widening, and several intersections identified for more detailed study.

Consultants described technical changes to the CTP's roadway cross sections (22 cross sections total; 12 new) and said most right-of-way needs fall within ranges from the prior plan but noted some corridors (Evans Road, portions of Morrisville Carpenter Road) may require additional right-of-way or detailed study. Staff also said greenway recommendations are being broken into smaller, constructible segments to allow phased implementation.

Board members and attendees pressed staff about representativeness: the online survey had 45 completed responses, the in-person activities collected about 101 participants who deposited pebbles into priority jars with a combined pebble count shown as 269 on the consultant's slides. Several board members requested additional outreach and modeling work; one member asked for updated origin-destination modeling to test potential routing or congestion impacts if a long-discussed tollway extension were reintroduced. Staff said the removal of the tollway extension from the town's project map was council-driven and noted DOT land-sales in the area make near-term tollway construction unlikely; staff did commit to further modeling if the board requests it.

Staff outlined next steps: continued outreach with NCDOT, CAMPO and Cary; targeted stakeholder outreach in June and July; a town-council briefing scheduled for the 23rd of the month; and preparation of an implementation plan with schedules, cost estimates and funding sources for return in late summer or fall. The town also noted an application for a Safe Streets for All grant for Morrisville Parkway improvements (reported in the meeting as approximately $10.5 million) and that about 65% of design work for those improvements has been completed.

Board members thanked staff for the work and pressed for more robust public outreach and quantifiable modeling results before finalizing items with regional or multi-jurisdictional implications.