How do you want your transportation system to look? Now? In the future? The Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) wants to know. ODOT’s Planning & Research Division is hosting a series of meetings across the State to provide residents with information, access to ODOT staff, and avenues for commenting on two important transportation planning documents.

Residents may suggest ideas and provide comments for the State Long Range Transportation Plan (LRP). This policy plan will represent ODOT’s guiding transportation policies for the next 25 years. Updated every five years, the Plan was last updated in 2005. It contains information and policies for highways, airports, rural transit, waterways, rail, pedestrians and bicyclists The Plan will address goals related to safety and security, accessibility and mobility, transportation system maintenance, freight/shipping options, and transportation and the economy. Residents will be asked to provide comments and propose future ideas for ODOT.

At the same meetings, residents will also be able to review, comment, and discuss with ODOT personnel the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP). This document is prepared biennially and presents transportation projects scheduled by ODOT for the next four federal fiscal years. Residents will be able to discuss and provide comments on these and any projects they would like ODOT to consider for addition to future Programs with ODOT personnel.

· November 2, 2009, 4-6pm – Downtown Tulsa Library, Aaronson Auditorium, 400 Civic Center, Tulsa

Comments will be received during the meetings or can be mailed to ODOT Planning & Research Division, 200 N.E. 21st Street, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 73105, and can be submitted via the LRP Web site at www.oklongrangeplan.com

These locations are accessible to persons having disabilities. Any person requiring an interpreter for the hearing impaired or for language translation (including Spanish and Vietnamese) is requested to contact ODOT’s Frances Campbell at (405) 521-2705 or fcampbell@odot.org 48 hours in advance of the meeting.

For more about ODOT’s Long Range Transportation Plan, go to www.oklongrangeplan.com