Published: March 24, 2008 12:14 am         

Greenville, Commerce city councils to meet

Council members from Greenville and Commerce are scheduled to get together this week to discuss the possible transportation futures of both cities.

The two Councils intend to convene for a workshop session at 5 p.m. Thursday at the Commerce City Hall, 1119 Alamo Street, to hear a presentation from the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG), regarding a possible expansion of the boundary of the organization’s Metropolitan Planning Area (MPA).

The NCTCOG conducted a public hearing regarding the same proposal in Greenville last month, as it believes Hunt County could become “urbanized” in about two decades.

If so, officials with the organization said, planning needs to start right away for what is expected to happen between now and 2030.

The NCTCOG is responsible for developing multi-modal transportation plans for the MPA, an area that currently includes Collin, Dallas, Denton, Tarrant and Rockwall counties as well as adjacent parts of Ellis, Johnson, Kaufman and Parker counties. The MPA boundary is federally required to include existing urban areas and any adjacent areas expected to be urbanized in the next 20 years.

The agency expects more than twice as many people — up to 181,000 — to be living in Hunt County in 2030.

In 2000, according to the NCTCOG, an estimated 31 percent of Hunt County workers commuted to the five core counties.