Krcu's Let's Talk Business

Now is a critical time for transportation infrastructure planning in the Cape/Jackson MSA. When an area becomes a federally defined metropolitan statistical area, they can establish a metropolitan planning organization. SEMPO, or the Southeast Metropolitan Planning Organization, serves that purpose for the local MSA. This is the group responsible for working with the Missouri Department of Transportation, the Illinois Department of Transportation, and the Federal Highway Administration to assess, plan, and improve the local transportation infrastructure. SEMPO was required by federal law to do a Metropolitan Transportation Plan. This plan identified how the metropolitan area will manage and operate a multi-modal transportation system (including transit, highway, bicycle, pedestrian, and accessible transportation) to meet the region’s economic, transportation, development and sustainability goals – among others – for a 20+-year planning horizon, while remaining fiscally constrained. The