All Day, Everyday, Transportation Your Way

Transportation isn’t just about getting from point A to point B. It’s about living, travelling to school, to work, grocery shopping, doctor’s appointments, or heading out on an adventure. The Merrimack Valley is fortunate to have a diverse transportation network that includes trains, trails, transit, roads and interstates, river travel, a port in Newburyport and more. MVPC is dedicated to collaborating with our communities and partners to ensure that the Merrimack Valley has a dynamic transportation network that works for all people.

Our Vision is to Create “a multi-modal, safe, efficient and cost-effective transportation system that supports our communities’ livability goals of economic vitality, high quality of life, preservation of natural resources and healthy lifestyles.”

Our Work

Transportation planning is a dynamic job that combines collaboration, facilitation and public participation with data collection, analyses, public outreach, collaboration, studies, technical assistance, performance management, problem solving, Federal funding program management, and more.

Safety

Increasing safety for all modes of travel in the region is perhaps the most important goal identified in the MVMPO’s Regional Transportation Plan. Every year, MVPC analyzes data on crashes and intersections to identify those roadways that need a closer look. We work with community groups to identify problems. We conduct studies at the request of our communities and work with MassDOT to perform Road Safety Audits. Often, these analyses lead to project development and eventually a construction project to improve an unsafe roadway intersection.

Congestion Management

Federal transportation regulations require that the MVMPO study and take steps to reduce roadway and transit congestion in the Valley. The MVMPO has adopted statewide performance measures and goals to address congestion in the region and has integrated the NPMRDS travel time data into the region’s Congestion Management Process. This process helps staff to identify congestion-related problems and solutions on interstates and local roads. Example studies include the I-495 study and Bus on Shoulder study.

Transit

MVPC provides planning assistance to the Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority in a variety of ways including development of required plans, data collection, performance measures, outreach, route studies, map making and more.

Asset Management

Municipalities are always looking for ways to effectively and efficiently manage their transportation infrastructure and assets including pavement, lights, signage and more. Asset management is the strategic and systematic way in which communities operate, maintain, upgrade and expand their transportation infrastructure and other assets.

MVPC provides technical assistance to our member communities in a variety of ways to help them better manage those assets and create a good asset management program. The following are examples of how we do that.

Data Collection

MVPC regularly collects data for our member communities. As part of our reporting work for the Merrimack Valley Regional Transportation Plan, we collect pavement conditions. MVPC staff have also collected data on sidewalks and sidewalk conditions for eight communities. Other data collected include lights, curbs, ADA ramps, crosswalks, catch basins, sewer manhole covers, water gates and valves, fire hydrants, trees and more.

Joint Procurement

MVPC provides joint procurement services to our communities to support cost-effective bidding of services that assist communities with asset management, such as line painting, street sweeping, catch basin cleaning, crack sealing, micro surfacing and pot hole fixing.

Community Technical Assistance

MVPC responds to the needs of our communities through a collaborative process.Examples of technical assistance provided includes intersection studies, traffic counts, parking studies, sidewalk data collection, boat ramp design, guard rail studies, pedestrian crossing studies and corridor studies.