Boone County is updating its county-wide transportation plan and is inviting county residents to share their thoughts.
“We’re organizing many opportunities for the public to share their thoughts with us,” said Robert Franxman, Boone County engineer and assistant county administrator, in a press release from the county. “Over the next six months, we’ll be gathering input through online surveys, pop-up booths at community events, and virtual and in-person open house events. We want to hear what’s working, what isn’t, and what would make travel in Boone County safer and more reliable.”
The next open house is scheduled for the evening of Monday, April 22, starting at 5 p.m. at the Boone County Enrichment Center on Patrick Drive in Burlington.
The event will serve as a way for residents to share their thoughts on transportation with elected officials through conversation, interactive exercises and mapping activities. The event is kid-friendly and will even feature coloring stations, inflatable play spaces and food trucks. Finally, the first 200 attendees can take home either Kentucky coffee tree or tulip poplar seedlings in honor of Earth Day.
The county last updated its transportation plan, which you can read about here, in 2017. Although there’s no required interval between plans, Boone County Judge/Executive Gary Moore said the county tries to update every eight to ten years or so.
The plans are created in consultation with the Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana Regional Council of Governments, known more commonly as OKI. OKI is the most prominent transportation planner in the region and provides complex computer modeling services to numerous local governments. They also serve as a grant funding conduit for road projects. Moore formerly served as the president of OKI.
“We make our transportation plans a tool to continue to move projects to completion, to construction, and because we’ve been successful planning transportation while we’re planning land use and while we’re planning parks and other amenities, it works,” Moore told LINK nky.
The planning becomes especially important as the county’s population levels have continued to change. The 2017 plan predicted Boone County’s population would grow by about 50,000 households between 2010 and 2040.
Several of the projects in the preceding plan have already been completed, Moore said.
Based on conversations he’s had with residents, Moore said there were several key focus areas people were interested in addressing as they related to transportation.
Additionally, many of the roads in the county belong to the state, meaning the county doesn’t directly manage them and may not even be eligible for funding to get them changed or fixed. Depending on the project, road improvement funding can come from local, state and federal dollars.
“I think it’s primarily relieving congestion, in some cases, improving safety,” Moore said. “We often hear comments like, ‘Well, why don’t you build the roads before growth happens?’ In a perfect world, that would be how it would be done, but, unfortunately, with limited financial resources from the state – and most of these are state highways, by the way – with limited resources, you have to create the demand before the state will fund improvements.”
According to a county announcement, the county will engage in the following steps during the update process:
- Review the strategic plans from both the county and its major population centers
- Examine existing traffic and infrastructure data
- Assess the county’s growth conditions
- Determine how the current transportation system can handle existing and future demand
Information on Monday’s open house is listed below. If you can’t make it to the open house in-person, you can still leave feedback electronically and view a virtual open house by visiting the county’s interactive webpage. You can also read a summary of the project on the county’s website.
BOONE COUNTY TRANSPORTATION OPEN HOUSE
Tuesday, April 22, 2025, 5 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Boone County Enrichment Center
1824 Patrick Drive, Burlington, Kentucky 41005
