Metropolitan planning organization

Metropolitan planning organization

A metropolitan planning organization (MPO) is a transportation policy-making organization made up of representatives from local government and transportation authorities. In the early 1970s, the United States Congress passed legislation that required the formation of an MPO for any Urbanized Area (UZA) with a population greater than 50,000. Congress created MPOs in order to ensure that existing and future expenditures for transportation projects and programs are based on a continuing, cooperative and comprehensive (“3-C”) planning process. Federal funding for transportation projects and programs are channeled through this planning process. As of 2005, there are 385 MPOs in the U.S.

Why congress created MPOs

In creating the requirements for MPOs and a metropolitan planning process, Congress identified several key reasons MPOs are essential:

Transportation investment means allocating scarce federal and other transportation funding resources appropriately;

Planning needs to reflect the region’s shared vision for its future;

Adequate transportation planning requires a comprehensive examination of the region’s future and investment alternatives; and

An MPO is needed to facilitate collaboration of governments, interested parties and residents in the planning process.

In other words, the federal government wishes to see federal transportation funds spent in a manner that has a basis in metropolitan regionwide plans developed through inter-governmental collaboration, rational analysis and consensus-based decision-making.

Governance of MPOs

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 comprises:

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 comprising 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.

An MPO's core functions

There are five core functions of an MPO:


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

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.

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 mobility and access for people and goods, efficient system performance and preservation, and quality of life.

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.

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.

It is also important to note that 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.

A changing MPO role

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.

MPOs differ greatly in various parts of the country and even within states. Some have large staffs, while others may include only a director and a transportation planner. Sometimes MPOs are staffed by a county or a council of government. In many urban areas existing organizations like counties or councils of government also function as MPOs. The MPO role can also be played by an independent organization or a regional government. In the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area, for example, the Metro is the MPO. In the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota metropolitan area, the Metropolitan Council is the MPO. An example of a medium sized MPO is the Lexington Area MPO in the Lexington, Kentucky region.

External links

Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations
History of MPOs
History of MPOs at njtpa.org
FHWA's Page on Metropolitan Transportation Planning (includes searchable database of MPOs)