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MAPA recently released its traffic growth study

The Metropolitan Area Planning Agency releases new traffic reports every couple of years.  Their most recent report, based on 2016 data, shows the Metro had a healthy growth rate in traffic from the previous report. 

Greg Youell, Executive Director for MAPA, says traffic growth grew by 2%. 

He says anecdotally, people have told MAPA it seems like it takes them longer to get home from work and the data in this report supports that observation. 

Youell says for the report, MAPA gathers traffic count data from state and local jurisdictions, factors in things like the time of year, and then analyzes the information. 

MAPA looks at streets, highways and interchanges.  Youell says the data in the report is extremely useful.

"Right now, MAPA is going to be gearing up for our long range transportation update.  We will be doing that in coordination with our whole Heartland 2050 vision.  And so the next year to two, we will be updating that.  So that ultimately provides an assessment of transportation in the region and a list of projects.  Then projects eligible for federal funding need to be in that regional long range transportation plan.  So it’s a big document that this data will help to inform.”

Youell says the MAPA report indicates the busiest intersection in the metro is still 90th and Dodge with over 102,750 vehicles driving it per day.  72nd and Dodge and 72nd and Pacific round out the top three busiest intersections.