Public involvement will be the focus of the latest update of the Long Range Transportation Plan, which will be undertaken by URS for the Metropolitan Planning Organization.

The MPO policy board officially entered into a contract with URS on Tuesday for update of the federally mandated Long Range Transportation Plan at a cost of about $225,000.

URS will take an innovative approach to the public input process. It will use various electronic media to encourage involvement in the process.

This will include Web-based virtual meetings, as Bismarck-Mandan area residents can view streaming videos of the URSpresentation. Web site users also can ask questions of the consultant through the "Open House Forum" provided by URSonline.

URSalso will be using Cable Access TV to broadcast meetings live. Viewers will be able to participate with the use of phones and the internet.

"The usual public process was mainly through public meetings. We would hold three or four meetings while the plan was being put together, along with some briefings of the various commissions and organizations," Troe said. "Looking at it from the public's perspective, the opportunities for input were relatively passive."

URSalso will create a committee with residents and property owners in Bismarck, Mandan, Morton and Burleigh, representing 14 different areas. This group will meet every other month during the course of the study, providing a greater sounding board for the consultant, Troe said.

"Along with the residents and landowners would be included a representative of the chamber (of commerce), colleges, hospitals, school boards, park districts and even bicycle groups," Troe said. "We're trying to get a cross section of people who use transportation in different ways."

Another addition to the study will be providing specific years of implementation for proposed projects and a financial analysis, which will account for price inflation - providing an estimated cost the year the project actually takes place. This is a recent federal mandate for long range transportation plans, Troe said.

The plan will give decision-makers greater information than ever before, according to Troe.

"This is an expensive plan and coming at a time that everybody wants to hold costs down, but everybody also wants input on," Bismarck Mayor John Warford said.

Warford said about $70,000 of the plan was going toward public involvement, nearly twice as much expended as compared to anything else in the plan. But the Bismarck mayor added that people want input, as he made the motion to approve the contract with URS.

Troe asked that the various jurisdictions represented on the MPO (Bismarck, Mandan, Burleigh, Morton and Lincoln) select people to place on the committee he had mentioned. He added it will take some time to get the group going.

(Reach reporter Gordon Weixel at 250-8255 or gordon.weixel@;bismarcktribune.com.)