Metropolitan planning organization

From PlanningWiki

A metropolitan planning organization (MPO) is a transportation policy-making organization made up of representatives from local government and transportation authorities. Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) were established as part of the [[Federal Aid Highway Act]] of 1962. The Congress of the United States passed legislation that required the formation of an MPO for any urbanized area (UZA) with a population greater than 50,000. State governors were required to designate an agency to ensure that transportation projects in these areas were part of a comprehensive, cooperative and continuing planning process: the three “Cs” of the planning process. Federal funding for transportation projects and programs are channeled through this planning process.

The organization designated as the state MPO could be part of the state government, a regional council of governments, a planning district, or an independent Metropolitan Planning Organization. As of 2005, there are 385 MPOs in the United States.

Contents 1 MPO governance 2 MPO functions 3 MPO role through time 4 References 5 External links

MPO governance

An MPO governance structure typically includes a variety of committees as well as a professional staff. The “policy committee” is the top-level decision-making body for the organization. In most MPOs, the policy committee is comprised of:

-- Elected and/or appointed officials from local municipalities;

-- Representatives of different transportation modes (e.g., public transit, freight, bicycle/pedestrian); and

-- State agency officials (e.g., state Department of Transportation, environmental agency, etc.).

With only a few unique exceptions nationwide, MPO policy committee members are not directly citizen-elected. Rather, a policy committee member is typically an elected or appointed official of one of the MPO’s constituent local jurisdictions. The policy committee member thus has legitimate authority to speak and act on behalf of that jurisdiction in the MPO setting.

The policy committee’s responsibilities include debating and making decisions on key MPO actions and issues, including adoption of the metropolitan Long Range Transportation Plan, Transportation Improvement Program, annual planning work program and budget and other policy documents. The policy committee may also play an active role in key decision points or milestones associated with MPO studies and plans and conduct public hearings and meetings.

Most MPOs also establish a technical committee to act as an advisory body to the policy committee for transportation issues that are primarily technical in nature. The technical committee interacts with the MPO’s professional staff on technical matters related to planning and analysis tasks and projects. Through this work, the technical committee develops recommendations on projects and programs for Policy Committee consideration. The technical committee is typically comprised of staff-level officials of local, state & federal agencies. In addition, a technical committee may include representatives of interest groups, various transportation modes and, in some cases, local citizens.

MPOs usually also retain a core professional staff in order to ensure the ability to carry out the required metropolitan planning process in an effective and expeditious manner. The size and qualifications of this staff may vary by MPO since no two metropolitan areas are the same nor have the same planning needs. However, most MPOs require at least some staff dedicated solely to MPO process oversight and management because of the complexity of the process and need to ensure requirements are being addressed properly.

MPO functions

There are five core functions of an MPO:

1. Establish a setting: Establish and manage a fair and impartial setting for effective regional decision-making in the metropolitan area.

2. Evaluate alternatives: Evaluate transportation alternatives, scaled to the size and complexity of the region, to the nature of its transportation issues, and to the realistically available options.

3. Maintain a Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP): Develop and update a fiscally-constrained long-range transportation plan for the metropolitan area covering a planning horizon of at least 20 years that fosters (1) mobility and access for people and goods, (2) efficient system performance and preservation, and (3) quality of life.

4. Develop a Transportation Improvement Program (TIP): Develop a fiscally-constrained program based on the long-range transportation plan and designed to serve the area’s goals, using spending, regulating, operating, management, and financial tools.

5. Involve the public: Involve the general public and all the significantly affected sub-groups in the four essential functions listed above.

Presently, most MPOs have no authority to raise revenues (e.g., levy taxes) on their own; rather, they are designed to allow local officials to collaboratively decide how available federal and non-federal transportation funds should be spent in urbanized areas. The funding for the operations of the MPO agency itself comes from a combination of federal transportation funds and required matching funds from state and local governments.

A metropolitan area’s designation as an air quality nonattainment or maintenance area creates additional requirements for transportation planning. Most significantly, transportation plans, programs, and projects must conform with the air quality plan, known as the “state implementation plan” (SIP), for the state within which the UZA lies.

MPO role through time

MPOs share as much of the same history of intergovernmental relations as many other program areas. Since the early 1960s, federal programs required some form of regional involvement and/or clearance for programs being initiated in a specific metropolitan area. As with many federal programs, the role of the MPO in transportation planning was severely diminished in the 1980’s. MPOs lost funding support and subsequently, capacity. They frequently became compilers of transportation projects that were identified by state departments of transportation; or in an effort to survive; they turned to entrepreneurial strategies such as providing expertise to local jurisdictions for transportation analysis and other studies.

The enactment of the 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) ushered in a renaissance for MPOs. After a decade or more of being consigned to a minimal role in transportation planning, ISTEA directed additional funding to MPOs, expanded their authority to select projects and mandated new metropolitan planning initiatives. State transportation officials, for the first time, were required to seriously consult with local representatives on MPO governing boards on matters of project prioritization and decision-making. These changes had their roots in the need to address increasingly difficult transportation problems – in particular, the more complicated patterns of traffic congestion that arose with the suburban development boom in the previous decades. Many recognized that the problems could only be effectively addressed through a stronger federal commitment to regional planning.

The legislation that emerged, the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA), was signed into law by the president in December 1991. It focused on improving transportation not as end in itself but as the means to achieve important national goals including economic progress, cleaner air, energy conservation and social equity. ISTEA promoted a transportation system in which different modes and facilities – highway, transit, pedestrian, bicycle, aviation and marine -- were integrated to allow a "seamless" movement of both goods and people. New funding programs provided greater flexibility in the use of funds, particularly regarding using previously restricted highway funds for transit development, supported improved "intermodal" connections and emphasized upgrades to existing facilities over building new capacity – particularly roadway capacity.

To accomplish more serious metropolitan planning, ISTEA doubled funding for MPO operations and required the agencies to evaluate a variety of multimodal solutions to roadway congestion and other transportation problems. MPOs were also required to broaden public participation in the planning process and see that investment decisions contributed to meeting the air quality standards of the Clean Air Act Amendments.

In addition, ISTEA placed a new requirement on MPOs to conduct “fiscally-constrained planning,” and ensure that long range transportation plans and short-term transportation improvement programs were fiscally-constrained; in other words, adopted plans and programs cannot include more projects than can be reasonably expected to be funded through existing or projected sources of revenues. This new requirement represented a major conceptual shift for many MPOs (and others in the planning community), since the imposition of fiscal discipline on plans now required not only understanding how much money might be available but how to prioritize investment needs and make hard choices between competing needs. Adding to this complexity is the need to plan across transportation modes and develop approaches for multimodal investment prioritization and decision-making. It is in this context of greater prominence, funding and requirements that MPOs function today.

References

• Arthur C. Nelson, Thomas W. Sanchez, James F. Wolf, and Mary Beth Farquhar (2003). Metropolitan Planning Organization Voting Structure and Transit Investment Bias: Preliminary Analysis with Social Equity Implications. Department of Urban Affairs and Planning, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

External links