The Board of Commissioners awarded a contract to Kimley-Horn and Associates to complete the county's comprehensive transit development plan, which Chairman Charlotte Nash formally announced at her state of the county address last month.

The transit plan, which Nash has vowed will include "ample discussion” with residents, will examine short-, medium- and long-term options for improving Gwinnett County’s transit offerings.

The long-term possibilities to be explored include "the development of high capacity dedicated right of way transit solutions," county Department of Transportation director Alan Chapman has said.

Nash has said that expanded transit options “must ... be part of any long-term solution” for the county, and she wants Gwinnett to hold a referendum on possible transit expansion in the near future — possibly as early as 2018.

No possible timetable has been released, however, for the transit development plan to be completed.

As it currently exists, Gwinnett County Transit consists of five local bus routes and several express lines — three that leave local park-and-rides and go to downtown Atlanta each morning before returning each evening; a fourth that starts in Atlanta in the morning and goes to Sugarloaf Mills mall and back; and a fifth that goes back and forth between Indian Trail Road and Emory University.