What Is Imagine 2055?

Imagine 2055 is the Saint Cloud region’s long-range transportation planning effort focused on how people will move throughout the region over the next 30 years.

Led by the Saint Cloud Area Planning Organization (APO), this effort combines updates to the region’s Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP) and Regional Active Transportation Plan into one shared vision for the future.

The plans look at all types of transportation, including roads, trails, sidewalks, biking, walking, public transit, freight movement, and emerging technology. It also helps guide future transportation investments and projects across the region.

This website is your opportunity to help shape that future. Share transportation concerns, ideas, and priorities in your community, whether you drive, walk, bike, roll, or ride transit. Your feedback will help guide future planning and investment decisions across the Saint Cloud area.

What is a Metropolitan Transportation Plan?

The Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP) is a long-range, multimodal, surface transportation plan that identifies a regional vision for transportation and the steps necessary to achieve that vision. By federal regulations, MTPs must have a planning horizon of at least 20 years and must be updated no less than every five years.

MTPs are a joint product of all individual agencies (such as transit and the State Department of Transportation) and jurisdictions within the region. Thus, MTPs must represent a singular, agreed upon vision for the future of transportation within that region. Goals and objectives are defined for the transportation system as well as individual strategies, policies, and transportation projects to help achieve those goals and objectives.

A transportation project listed in the MTP is eligible for federal transportation funding.

An MTP must include:

  1. An identification of existing transportation issues.
  2. Projections of future transportation demand.
  3. A long-term financial plan for funding the construction and preservation of transportation systems. This also includes cost estimates for future projects and a comparison to funding sources that are reasonably expected to be available.

An MTP is multimodal and includes an analysis of the transportation networks individually and as a whole. This includes roadways, public transit, active transportation networks, and freight systems.

Overall, the MTP is a regional plan that defines the course for future transportation investments!