Transportation Task Force holds first meeting

ORT conducted its first meeting of the Transportation Task Force, on Monday, August 3, at the Betty Easley Conference Center Conference at Southwood. Presenters included Harry Reed, executive director of Capital Region Transportation Planning Agency, and Ron Garrison, executive director of StarMetro. The focus of this first meeting was to educate the other task force members on current and on-going efforts to enhance transportation and transit in the ORT region. Garrison and Reed also provided important overviews of the themes around transit oriented development, or using transportation as an economic development tool. Key questions raised during the Task Force meeting were how to make the work of CRTPA and StarMetro as relevant as possible to the rest of the 10-county ORT region. This and other questions will be addressed when the Transportation Task Force reports to the ORT Advisory Board on September 10, 2009.