Share Your Thoughts About Our Region Through MetroCommon 2050

By Sandra Hackman
Bedford’s MAPC Representative

The Metropolitan Area Planning Commission (MAPC) is updating its long-range plan for our metropolitan region, now called MetroCommon 2050. Click this link to learn more about MetroCommon 2050.

This ambitious effort strives to anticipate the forces affecting the region’s ability to thrive and to map out goals and action items that would ensure a robust future regarding the economy, transportation, climate change, equity, and many other areas.

MAPC is soliciting ideas from as many people as possible to ensure that the plan is robust and responsive. Toward that end, the agency will host listening sessions in each region to gather input from any and all residents and town officials.

Attend a Local Listening Session

A pair of listening sessions are scheduled soon; each will run from 3 to 8 pm:

• February 6 in Framingham – Click here to register
• March 6 in Boston – Click here to register

These events offer a great opportunity to connect with other engaged residents of our region and submit our ideas and priorities to MAPC staff. Please consider attending one of them: you can drop in anytime, and stay for as long or short a time as you like. Planning Board member Cindy Barbehenn attended a recent listening session in Salem and found it interesting and valuable. (Barbahenn is also a member of the external advisory committee for MetroCommon 2050.)

Or, Weigh in Online

And, if you can’t make one of the listening sessions, there’s an online opportunity to share your thoughts on one of two questions:

• Congratulations! You get to ask someone in the year 2050 about what life is like! What do you want to know?
• In your ideal future, what do you want life to be like? (Feel free to talk about specific groups like children or seniors, and specific issues like housing or transportation.)

Click this link to weigh in online.

Everyone is welcome to participate in the listening sessions, the online questions, or both. Please join in: MAPC is hoping to hear from you about your vision for the future of our region!.