EDA Meeting Source: SRPC
Planning

Regional transportation planner Colin Lentz represented SRPC at the NH Association of Regional Planning Commissions' legislative breakfast on Tuesday, Mar. 27. This annual event allows legislators the opportunity to talk with regional planning commission staff about ongoing projects. 

He updated the state legislators on congestion mitigation and air quality projects in the region, on the Newington-Dover bridge project, on a transportation infrastructure vulnerability toolkit being drafted by Strafford Metropolitan Planning Organization staffers to be marketed to municipalities, and on partnerships with transit partners in the region.
 
For more information about the event, contact Becky Baldwin at bbaldwin@swrpc.org .

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Transportation

On Thursday, Mar. 29, data analyst Rachel Dewey attended the kick-off meeting for the state's target-setting process for five safety performance measures. The meeting was held at the New Hampshire Department of Transportation (NHDOT) in Concord and included staffers from the NHDOT Safety Section; NHDOT Asset Management, Performance, and Strategies; and FHWA.
 
The group discussed how the state agencies and the state's metropolitan planning organizations will set their safety targets and how crash data will be shared.

The FHWA mandated safety performance measures are defined in 23 CFR 490. They are the number of fatalities, the rate of fatalities, the number of serious injuries, the rate of serious injuries, and the number of non-motorized serious injuries and fatalities. NHDOT and NHDOS are required by USDOT to set identical targets for three of the performance measures. NHDOS will report its targets in July, and NHDOT will report targets in August. For more information, contact Rachel at rdewey@strafford.org.

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Economic Development

James Burdin, regional economic development planner, and Nancy O'Connor, program content coordinator, attended a meeting of New Hampshire and Maine Economic Development Districts (EDDs) on Wednesday, Mar. 21, in Auburn, Maine. The event was hosted by the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments. It gave the EDDs the chance to share regional economic development priorities with U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) Regional Director Linda Cruz-Carnall and economic development representatives Alan Brigham and Matt Suchodolski.
 
The meeting participants also discussed EDA's new Economic Integration initiative, which is designed to improve the sharing of information about federal economic development programs available through EDA and other federal partners. EDA is also launching a program of Regional Economic Diversification Summits to be organized around a particular local economic problem or need for the purpose of connecting stakeholders to relevant federal programs.

Strafford EDD is also looking to connect and engage stakeholders, and is currently seeking volunteers to join its Strategy Committee for the annual update of the region's Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy. For more information about the project or about the Strafford EDD, please contact James at JBurdin@strafford.org .

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Strafford Regional Planning Commission | 603-994-3500 | srpc@strafford.org | www.strafford.org


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