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Comprehensive Plan Transportation Element Senate Bill 360, Florida's recently enacted Growth Management legislation, removes state - mandated transportation concurrency requirements in targeted areas designated as Dense Urban Land Areas (DULAs). Dense Urban Land Areas are cities and counties that have a minimum population density of 1,000 persons per square mile. Pursuant to SB 360, each of the designated jurisdictions becomes a Transportation Concurrency Exemption Area (TCEA) and can, if it desires, amend its local comprehensive plan to eliminate its concurrency requirements. In Indian River County, two cities, Sebastian and Vero Beach, qualify for the concurrency exemption provisions. To ensure that the county adequately coordinates with cities on transportation concurrency issues, the county should adopt a policy to coordinate with the municipalities to develop a common methodology for measuring transportation impacts across jurisdictional boundaries. In recent years, several proposed development projects in adjacent counties were large enough to have significant traffic impacts on Indian River County. Those projects were all located in St. Lucie and Brevard counties. Currently, there is little formal traffic impact coordination between Indian River, Brevard, and St. Lucie counties, except with respect to Developments of Regional Impact. For the last few years, Indian River County has informally discussed traffic study methodologies, LOS standards, traffic count programs, and concurrency methodologies with Brevard and St. Lucie counties. Through these discussions, the county has determined that there are substantial differences in methodologies between the three counties, particularly with respect to their concurrency management systems. Regardless, the county should adopt a policy to work with St. Lucie and Brevard Counties to develop a common methodology for measuring transportation impacts among all three counties. There are two other counties adjacent to Indian River. These are Okeechobee and Osceola. Both of those counties are located contiguous to environmental or low density agricultural areas of Indian River County and therefore pose no significant impact to maintaining levels of service in the county. Long Range Transportation Plan Development and Future Needs According to the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991, each MPO must develop a long range transportation plan to address the transportation needs of its area. In addition, ISTEA requires that long range plans consider a horizon of at least 20 years. In 2005, the Indian River County MPO completed its most recent Long Range Plan update. The horizon year for that plan is 2030. It should be noted that the MPO is in the process of updating its LRTP to the year 2035. After the 2035 update is completed, Indian River County will amend its Comprehensive Plan to ensure consistency with the adopted LRTP. As indicated in the MPO's long-range plan, the analysis of projected traffic needs involves three primary steps: Model Validation, Needs Analysis, and Cost Feasible Analysis. Community Development Department Indian River County 55