| With its grant of $143,000, the Louisiana Planning and Development Commission, the MPO in South Central Louisiana, is undertaking a two-year project to integrate transit over three parish regions. By providing coordinated transportation services across political boundaries, the cooperative project will improve access to jobs, goods, and services and promote economic growth. The project will also serve as a model of inter-parish cooperation in the provision of transit services. Currently, each of the three parishes operates separate transit systems. Because of a high level of cross-parish commuting and a mix of urban, suburban, and rural characteristics, services would be more effective if integrated. The MPO would like to model the successful transit system in New Orleans. It intends to utilize TCSP resources to create a plan of coordination, build consensus with the different players affected by the project, and ultimately approach voters with a new tax plan that will fund this inter-parish transportation system. The project will also result in recommendations for land use policies to increase the effectiveness of transit.
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