DATS to end meetings, area to lose funding

Jennifer Bailey, Commercial-News, Danville, Ill.
·2 min read

Apr. 16—DANVILLE — Danville Area Transporation Study is no longer obligated to have meetings after June.

This is due to the local transportation planning group being dissolved with the area's population loss.

"I'm not sure if we will need to have May or June meetings either. It depends on if action is required on anything," according to Danville City Engineer Sam Cole.

A DATS Decommissioning Timeline Memo states: The purpose of this memo is to document notification to the DATS Policy Committee and to clarify the timeline and agency obligations for the Danville Area Transportation Study (DATS) MPO decommissioning process.

Below is a general summary of what will occur.

1. As a result of the 2020 census and/or revisions to the metropolitan area delineation process, the population of the MPA (metropolitan planning area) has fallen below the population threshold required to receive federal and state funds direction to an MPO. As a result, the federal requirement to sustain an MPO will no longer exist. The federal requirement to maintain the MPO will expire at the end of June 2024. This also results in a loss of federal and state grant funds that have supported the planning efforts of DATS.

2. While the MPO requirement is expiring at the end of June, the lead agency (City of Danville) will be required to continue reporting and ensure proper expenditure of grant funds awarded under the current grant agreement, which will end on Dec. 31, 2024.

3. The MPO will not be required to formally continue with monthly meetings after June 2024 but may do so if it desires.

4. No formal dissolution beyond this document is required by the Illinois Department of Transporation or Federal Highway Administration to terminate or satisfy the obligations of the MPO. Administratively, the City of Danville will no longer include DATS budgets with its annual budgets at which time it sees fit. Danville will continue with appropriate procurement, accounting, reporting and audit practices in accordance with federal guidelines required of an MPO to ensure that remaining reporting and practices are compliant with the terms of the current grant agreement.

The loss of the metropolitan group means the loss of approximately $250,000 a year in transportation planning dollars, and other funding for Danville Mass Transit (DMT) and Danville.

DMT won't receive an urbanized area funding allotment anymore and Danville's allotted construction dollars will be a reduced amount, based on about 30,000 people instead of this area's 50,000 people.

"In all over a 10-year period, it's probably in the $10-to-$15 million dollars ballpark ...," Cole has previously said about the hit. "It affects a lot of funding."

Meetings this month by the DATS Technical and Policy committees also have included information on the Kickapoo Rail Trail Route Planning Study and a transportation improvement program amendment.

Prior to last week's Policy Committee meeting, that committee hadn't met since September 2023.