With the increased population DeKalb County has experienced this year, transportation issues may surface.

This recent increase around DeKalb County has forced the City of DeKalb and surrounding towns to create a Metropolitan Planning Organization to address transportation needs.

In recent census information, DeKalb makes up about 70 percent of the population affected. Federal law requires MPOs to be organized for areas with a population of 50,000 people or more and need to be established to address transportation problems.

“MPOs are founded on the idea that transportation problems do not stop at city borders,” DeKalb City Planner Ray Keller said.

DeKalb will have to work with Sycamore, Cortland and nearby towns on the county board. The towns must sign an intergovernmental agreement for an MPO to be established.

The MPO will consist of two boards. A policy board will be comprised of six elected officials who will receive recommendations from a technical board, which is made up of as many engineers, planners and advisers as deemed necessary.

DeKalb will get three votes on the policy board and Sycamore, Cortland and a representative from the county will account the other votes. The policy board will have most of the governing power and will work to establish a plan for a Transportation Improvement Program. This plan will determine how much federal funding the program will receive.

“We are at the very preliminary stages of trying to identify who will be on the policy board,” Keller said.

The MPO needs to be established as quickly as possible to draft a long-range plan by next year’s deadline. The City of DeKalb hopes for it to be established as soon as possible.

“We would like to have it established by the end of the year, hopefully by October,” Community Development Director Paul Rasmussen said.

There are 14 functioning MPOs in Illinois and DeKalb is one of two being added this year.

The MPOs receive funding from both the state and federal levels. From fiscal year 2000 to 2004 total funding will come to more than $6.7 billion with 62.5 percent provided by the state, 35.5 percent provided by the federal government and the other 2 percent coming from local governments.

The DeKalb MPO looks to benefit from the nearly $3.9 million that will be set aside for Transportation Improvement Programs for the next two fiscal years.

DeKalb residents should be seeing projects popping up in the next couple years. Star Poll