City Plan shapes decision making and funding priorities to implement the future the community desires.
What is City Plan?
City Plan is Fort Collins’ comprehensive plan that guides how the community will grow and travel in the next 10-20 years. City Plan describes our community’s vision and core values, as well as providing policy guidance and implementation actions to achieve both. City Plan includes guidance on future land-use, transportation, and was coordinated and developed alongside an update to Fort Collins’ Transit Master Plan.
Learn more about key concepts from City Plan and the Transit Master Plan on the following pages or download each document for a deeper dive.
Vision & Values
Developed with the input and aid of thousands of community members, City Plan describes important community values such as livability, sustainability, and community, and an aspirational vision for our future. Both the vision and values in City Plan support City Plan’s principles and policies which help guide the City’s decision-making and budgeting processes.
Principles & Policies
The principles and policies in City Plan and the Transit Master Plan help guide decisions on land-use, housing, transportation & transit, and much more for City decision-makers and other community organizations and institutions. City Plan policies provide the broadest direction and priorities in the community and are supported by more specific direction found in the City’s Strategic, neighborhood, and modal plans.
City Plan policies are organized by the City’s seven key outcomes areas, which are used in the City’s outcome-oriented budgeting process.
Structure Plan
The Structure Plan is a visual representation of how different areas of the community may change or grow in the future and describes what types of transportation and transit options will be available. The Structure Plan map illustrates where different place types exist in the community, and descriptions, maps, and renderings of how place types are likely to evolve as redevelopment occurs or new transportation options are added.
What is the Transportation Master Plan?
The Transportation Master Plan (TMP) establishes a vision for mobility in Fort Collins, achieved through a safe and reliable multimodal transportation network for all residents, visitors and employees. The City recognizes the importance of an integrated and balanced transportation network that supports access and mobility for all people. To achieve this outcome, this plan outlines a bold vision to improve the accessibility, mobility, reliability and safety of the transportation system for all modes.
Infrastructure, Mobility, Travel Choices
Strategic infrastructure investment provides residents and visitors with safe, comfortable and intuitive choices for multiple modes that balance cost, time, environmental outcomes and health benefits. The plan provides an in-depth consideration of the role each transportation mode plays in shaping the Fort Collins mobility network, and how travel options and choices are key to the future of transportation in Fort Collins.
Health, Equity, Innovation
Promoting community health and equity is a core value for the City, as seen in targeted efforts such as the Climate Action Plan, the Neighborhood Traffic Mitigation Program and the work of the Fort Collins Social Sustainability Department.
Fort Collins is committed to developing and embracing emerging technologies have potential positive impacts in contributing to meeting Fort Collins’ vision and goals. At the same time, some of these technologies could threaten the quality of life in the city if not managed well, such as congestion from induced demand with driverless cars or drones making same-day deliveries.
Safety, Sustainability, Resiliency
The City of Fort Collins strives to provides a safe and efficient transportation system for people using all modes of travel. Safety for roadway users is a top priority, and in 2016 the City became the first public local entity to join the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) Moving Towards Zero Deaths initiative.
New technologies provide a clear avenue for making transportation more sustainable. Whether by supporting more electric-vehicle travel or making bike-share and transit more accessible through enhanced smartphone applications, Fort Collins can facilitate travel solutions that will improve environmental outcomes while helping residents and visitors enjoy enhanced mobility.
What is the Transit Master Plan?
City Plan defines a strong land-use vision for the future to ensure that Fort Collins in 2040 remains an attractive and thriving place to live, study, work and visit. This land-use vision will concentrate much of the City’s population and employment growth along key transportation corridors, while still providing for a mix of different development types across Fort Collins. In support of City Plan, the Transit Master Plan will evolve the transit system as follows:
- Expand Bus Rapid Transit in locations with transit-supportive land-uses.
- Increase Frequencies to keep up with increasing demand as land-use becomes more dense.
- Expand Coverage of the transit network to low density areas through mobility innovation zones.
- Add Regional Routes to connect Fort Collins to more surrounding communities and provide options for commuters.
- Improve Connections to transit by leveraging the layered network from the Transportation Master Plan and developing strategic mobility hubs on the core transit network.
- Modernize Transfort’s operations by adopting new autonomous and electric vehicle technologies, partnerships with mobility providers, and the latest information-sharing platforms.
- Funding to support approximately $300 million in capital improvements and doubling the annual operating budget over the next 20 years will be thoroughly explored with a funding study.
Principles & Policies
The principles and policies in the Transit Master Plan provide a high-level framework guiding Transfort’s growth over the next 20 years.
Future Network
Transfort plans to double service over the next 20 years by increasing frequency on all routes and adding 3 additional bus rapid transit routes (BRT – like the MAX!) thereby making transit more convenient and productive for the community. The Future Network is the map of future routes and frequencies.
Mobility Hubs / Innovation Zones
For Transfort to keep up with new technologies such as rideshare companies (Uber, Lyft) and forthcoming autonomous vehicles, the Transit Master Plan proposes to provide on-demand service in low-density neighborhoods (Innovation Zones) dropping passengers off at Mobility Hubs that serve as multi-mode transit stations where one can take a bus, bike, carshare, scooter, or meet a friend.