The Southwest Michigan Planning Commission chose the Connecting Communities and People: The Southwest Michigan Non-Motorized Transportation Plan and Map Project as the recipient of its 2012 Graham Woodhouse Intergovernmental Cooperation Award.
The award-winning project developed a comprehenseive, regional nonmotorized transportation plan for Michigan Department of Transportation’s Southwest Region, including Allegan, Barry Berrien, Branch, Calhoun, Cass, Kalamazoo, St. Joseph and Van Buren counties.
“The Graham Woodhouse Intergovernmental Effort Award recognizes cross-jurisdictional, regional cooperation as highly valued by the SWMPC,” said John Egelhaaf, executive director of the SWMPC.  “Such cooperation breeds the efficient use of limited resources, makes use of combined goal-setting and speaks to the way most see the world as nodes of regional resources.  The players in this thankless process are frequently not recognized so to those who search for collaborative change … Your work is appreciated and worthy of recognition.”
The regional plan provides southwest Michigan jurisdictions the opportunity to see where their neighbors are planning facilities and how they can connect with them.  Without a region wide vision and details regarding community facilities either already built or that are planned to be built, a greater potential for facility disconnect occurs.
It can be very difficult for communities of this number to coordinate their efforts on such a large scale.
The plan and map may be found on the SWMPC website, www.swmpc.org.