Palm Beach County on Thursday received an update on the countywide transportation master plan (CTMP) from consultants with WSP and planning partners.

Claudia Bellotto, project manager for WSP, told the Board that the study completed a discovery phase that included 12 public outreach meetings and a public survey that produced “We received over 1,500 responses.” She said the outreach produced more than 400 meeting attendees across open-house events, and that consultants had collected more than 100 planning documents from municipalities and agencies to inform the countywide analysis.

Bellotto summarized four organizing pillars for the CTMP—safety, connectivity, technology and mobility choice—and said the project team will next focus on technical modeling, corridor analyses and hot-spot testing to evaluate how candidate solutions could affect performance. Victor Dover, a planning consultant on the project, described how land use affects trip lengths and mode choice and emphasized that the CTMP will “inform” but not replace local zoning or compel land-use changes: the consultants “are not going to … recommend site-specific land use or zoning changes” as part of the current scope.

Commissioners pressed the consultants on data inputs and tools. Commissioner Woodward asked whether the project would produce a digital twin or an online simulation tool; Bellotto said the deliverable will include a public portal to access analysis and recommendations but that running new, on-demand simulations would require additional resources. She said the portal will accept municipality updates manually and that staff and local jurisdictions can upload changes after adoption.

Commissioner Weiss asked about real-time data sources and the base year for modeling. The consultants said the CTMP’s base-year data inputs are 2024 and that the team is aggregating multiple sources including travel counts, regional models and commercial telemetry (including Google/Waze-derived datasets and a tool called Replika) to inform the travel-demand modeling and congestion analysis.

Consultants said they will evaluate potential near- and mid-term impacts of emerging technologies—electric vehicles, automated shuttles and advanced air mobility—and consider how those changes affect curbside, delivery and last-mile needs. They recommended design details (for example, tree-lined sidewalks) to encourage shorter trips by walking or biking where feasible and said the plan will analyze corridors and subareas to prioritize projects for implementation.

Staff and consultants told the board they will move into a technical phase over the next two months, working with a technical advisory group composed of MPO and municipal staff. County staff said the existing contract allows the CTMP team to scope additional planning-level services if the board requests them; the board expressed consensus to proceed with the current scope and revisit scope expansion later.

Discussion points: Commissioners repeatedly asked about (1) frequency and recency of traffic counts, (2) whether the portal would support live or dynamically updated data, (3) how the plan would incorporate municipal comp-plan changes, and (4) how the team will account for emerging technologies. Consultants said the portal will contain the CTMP’s analysis results, that base-year data are 2024, and that dynamic, on-demand simulation capability is feasible only with added budget.

Next steps: WSP will finalize technical-model inputs, produce corridor tests and return with recommendations and a public portal. Staff will continue technical advisory meetings and will return to the board to discuss any requested expansion of scope or costs for added simulation capability.