The N.C. Department of Transportation's Planning Branch helps metropolitan planning organizations, small urban areas and counties across the state to develop comprehensive transportation plans that outline transportation priorities (usually for about a 20- to 25-year period) that are based on future land use, employment and population changes.
Each comprehensive transportation plan involves an environmental screening – to be sure the plan considers the effects of the projects on the community and environmental resources – and includes short- and long-term recommendations for improvements to the overall transportation system.
NCDOT and each metropolitan planning organization or local government then adopts the plan, which becomes the blueprint for transportation infrastructure improvements in that area.