Getting around can be tough without a car, but the DeKalb-Sycamore Metropolitan Planning Organization is trying to make it easier for people to travel around the DeKalb and Sycamore area.

During Thursday’s meeting, the DeKalb-Sycamore Area Transportation Study Policy Committee approved an intergovernmental agreement between the Illinois Department of Transportation and the City of DeKalb.

This agreement gives the MPO a $70,000 budget to be used over a six-month period to set up the organization and to begin initial projects.

City Planner Ray Keller was chosen as the MPO director. The new group is expected to help the Green Line better serve people in the community, especially NIU students.

“One thing about the Green Line is [that] it does go to locations where the Huskie Line does not operate,” said Thomas Zucker, executive director of the Voluntary Action Center. “This group, this MPO, will now have a function of reviewing and improving these grants.”

The Green Line also can help students get to Sycamore. Students can transfer from the Green Line to the Door-to-Door service, which is an in-between service to get to Sycamore.

Sycamore Mayor John Swedberg said NIU students can get a lot by being able to go to another nearby city.

“The number one thing I can think of that students will be interested in is another library,” Swedberg said. “We offer a wonderful array of resources that you will find to your advantage.”

Swedberg also said students would like the turn of the century look in Sycamore.

“It’s one more place to take a date,” he said. “Sycamore is very refreshing, a good place to visit.”

Happy Oboh, a senior mechanical engineering major, likes the idea of being able to get to Sycamore by the bus routes since he doesn’t have a car at NIU.

“I would like to go to Sycamore for different stores, and my dentist is there,” Oboh said.

The Green Line operates Monday through Friday from 7a.m. to 9 p.m. and costs 50 cents to ride, no matter where it’s taken to. The Green Line makes about 40 stops in an hour.

The agreement will help the committee start initial staffing and allow it to begin work on the Long Range Transportation Plan.