Special to The Hays Daily News

A series of eight regional meetings that give Kansans the opportunity to discuss their transportation priorities with members of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' transportation task force have been scheduled throughout the month of September.

The consultation meetings will include collaborative regional discussions on highway and other transportation needs -- rail, aviation, transit, bike/pedestrian -- in the morning. In the afternoon, there will be an opportunity for communities to testify about their particular projects or concerns.

The Hays meeting will begin at 8:30 a.m. Friday at the Holiday Inn and Convention Center, 3603 Vine.

"It is important that the discussion at these meetings be elevated to the regional and state levels," said Kansas Department of Transportation Secretary Deb Miller. "We will also have a conversation about how transportation should be paid for and what funding approaches Kansans will support."

The meetings will be conducted by KDOT staff and include representatives of the governor's Transportation-Leveraging Investments in Kansas task force. Although the full 35-member T-LINK task force, charged with developing a new strategic transportation approach for Kansas, will not be present at each meeting, a number of task force members will participate in each session.

KDOT also conducted of a series of local consultation meetings two years ago to hear what types of projects were important to communities.

"It's time to go back to communities to determine if any economic or transportation needs have changed in the last two years and to continue discussions about regional priorities," Miller said. "Clearly, there will always be more needs than funding, so it's important to think about how transportation investments best support statewide needs."

Summaries of each local consultation meeting will be posted on the T-LINK Web site at www.kansastlink.com. The Web site also includes full summaries of T-LINK meetings, schedules and more.