Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) is the metropolitan planning organization for the Delaware Valley. Created in 1965 by an interstate compact, DVRPC is responsible for transportation and regional planning in the greater Philadelphia area.
DVRPC produces a long range plan every five years. The current long range plan is Direction 2030.
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[edit] Before DVRPC
The first regional planning effort in the Delaware Valley was done by the Regional Planning Federation of the Tri-State District in the 1920's and 1930's. This citizen based planning effort was typical for its time and was funded by the sale of subscriptions and private donations.
[edit] The Pennsylvania - New Jersey Study
Also known as the "Penn-Jersey" study, this effort was funded by the passing of the 1956 Federal Highway Aid Act.
[edit] Inception and Role
Created in 1965, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) is an interstate, intercounty, and intercity agency that provides continuing, comprehensive, and coordinated planning to shape a vision for the future growth of the Delaware Valley region. The region includes Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery counties, as well as the City of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania; and Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, and Mercer counties in New Jersey. DVRPC provides technical assistance and services; conducts high priority studies that respond to the requests and demands of member state and local governments; fosters cooperation among various constituents to forge a consensus on diverse regional issues; determines and meets the needs of the private sector; and practices public outreach efforts to promote two-way communication and public awareness of regional issues and the Commission.
[edit] Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act
The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA, pronounced "Ice-Tea") changed transportation planning across the nation.
[edit] The Information Age
DVRPC entered into the information technology age in 1994 by establishing one of the first FTP sites for a metro planning organization. Hosted on LibertyNET, a local network of nonprofit organizations, the draft documents of Direction 2020 were made available to the general public for download and comment. By 1995, the first commission website replaced this content and ushered in a new era of citizen involvement.
On August 19, 1997, DVRPC launched our new website and domain name www.dvrpc.org which was housed internally on our own Windows NT server and managed by staff in the Regional Information Services Center (RISC). By January 1998, with the ability to easily publish to our website, the website expanded exponentially, including meeting agendas, minutes, press releases, newsletters and data bulletins and datasets. Version 4 of the DVRPC Website was launched in January (structurally) and April (graphically) 1999 by Joe Fazekas in the Department of Data Services and it incorporated professionally-designed graphics, a scrolling java applet for our latest announcements, and a simple javascript mouseover to show the contents of each section of the site. This site lasted until April 3, 2004, when version 5 of the DVRPC Website, designed in-house, was launched. In October 2005, much of the Department of Data Services became the Office of Information Technology (IT) where additional staff contributed to the programming of this site.
In April 2006, Barry Seymour was selected by the DVRPC Board to be the new Executive Director, to replace John Coscia, who had been the Executive Director since 1982. Under this new leadership, the Office of IT was folded into the Technical Services Division of DVRPC where it remains to this day.
