For Release Friday, July 31, 2009
Citiwire.net
Somewhere between 350 and 400 Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) exist in the United States, and unless the rules get changed there may be 40 more after the next census.
So what are these beasts? Authorized by federal statute in 1962, MPOs are established by agreement of a governor and units of general-purpose local government. Their purpose is to bring together elected and appointed officials from different levels of government, plus (though it doesn’t happen often) civic leaders and professional planners, to create a “continuing, cooperative and comprehensive” planning process for the allocation of federal transportation dollars.
The Florida Transportation Plan (FTP) lays out the rationale for the creation of MPOs: “Increasingly, Florida’s economy is functioning at a regional scale as development spreads out from city centers and metropolitan areas grow together. The FTP identifies regional level coordination as critical to the process of making good decisions about transportation planning and programming.” So Florida has 26 MPOs.
In short, MPOs are ideally suited to the regional realities of today’s metropolitan areas and to the task of shaping future growth in multi-jurisdictional communities.
Except for one thing: they largely lack power to implement the transportation improvement plans (TIPs) they recommend. That’s why we can think of them as “sleeping giants.” They can propose, but not dispose. They can veto federally funded projects allocated under state plans, but not rewrite them. So they have few if any teeth. They are good for jawboning and horse-trading amongst a selected group of interested officials, but they have difficulty walking their talk. Their job is to coordinate, not operate. They lack clout, and are not given the power to enforce the plans they recommend to city or county councils or the state legislature.
Of course, every MPO loyalist who reads this will think his or her MPO is an exception to the rule. And certainly, we must recognize that influential, strong MPOs exist. Among them are SACOG in the Sacramento valley, which developed a “Blueprint” for growth; the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission which adopted a FY2009-FY2012 TIP for New Jersey and Pennsylvania that includes more than 600 projects and totals more than $5.5 billion; METRO in Portland, Ore., and the Metropolitan Council in the Twin Cities area. In San Diego County, SANDAG will allocate $14 billion of new sales tax revenues for transportation improvements.
Efforts have been made at the federal level to strengthen MPOs. Every six years (or so), Congress sets the country’s transportation and infrastructure priorities–allocating billions of dollars for projects that shape our communities for generations. ISTEA (the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act) came along in 1991, followed in 1998 by TEA-21, and SAFETEA-LU (Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users) in 2005.
And now, in what needs to be the fourth modern-day iteration of Congressional legislation on transportation and infrastructure, action has been postponed for 18 months in favor of simply extending current legislation. The White House is calling this “the first stage of surface transportation reauthorization, consisting of an 18-month plan to address the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) shortfall and implement discrete, leading-edge capacity-building measures that a long-term reauthorization should expand upon.” That $20 billion shortfall will have to be funded, or the HTF will go broke. The Administration is also proposing $300 million of funding to help states and MPOs build evaluation capacity for collection and analysis of data on transportation goals.
But most of this seems to be tinkering around the edges, rather than promoting systemic MPO reform. Recommend; evaluate; coordinate; assess: few teeth there. Here are a few suggestions to wake up the sleeping giants:
Elect the membership. Elected officials and agency staff could be excepted; they would serve ex-officio. But let all eligible voters have the opportunity to vote on citizen members in any number chosen as long as it exceeds the number of ex-officio members.
Give MPOs actual authority to zone land, allocate funds, issue bonds, levy taxes, and enforce federal and state regulations regarding clean air and water.
Require MPOs to focus on GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions as a planning issue, since lower densities generate a larger carbon footprint than higher ones. And not only that: federal law should require that the TIPs comply with results-based goals for climate stability, furthering national energy independence and clean energy goals.
Require neighboring regions to link their planning through a uniform approach to presenting information and benchmarking results. And require, indeed, that there only be a single MPO for a single metro region–Many are now all split up, with predictably minimal coordination.
Develop multimodal regional access plans, establish local transportation governance standards and best practices, and fund approved multimodal access plans (as recommended by the White House).
Mandate a “fix it first” strategy for MPOs, which is to say, rebuild the old before building the new.
So, a few ideas. Any takers?
William Hudnut’s e-mail address is bhudnut3@gmail.com.
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14 Comments
As the director of and MPO I commend you for you statements. I have been advocating for MPO’s to have actual authority for many years. One of the fundamental changes that should come about through the reauthorization process should be that funding that is allocated to the MPO’s should actually come to the MPO’s directly and not through the state DOT’s. MPO’s would still have to live by the federal guidelines but this would allow for true local influence on projects.
Bill Hudnut, now free of ULI attitudes, is absolutely correct in his wise statements of how MPOs should act if they were freed from the ropes tied to every little town and county, basically a requirement of the MPO legislation. The White House Urban Affairs Office, still silent, should recruit him as a Senior Statesman with a lifetime of experience. He has enormous wisdom and prestige. Tell Obama!
Recently passed legislation in California (Senate Bill 375) calls for the development of new regional plans throughout the state aimed at changing land use patterns to reduce greehouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, the legislation doesn’t require localities to follow these plans. Our new Center for a Sustainable California at UC Berkeley is looking into ways of bridging over this disconnect.
Bill, you are absolutely right MPOs need to be revisited and reformed. I recently discussed them in the context of regional planning more generally. Your suggestion about zoning caught my eye — I don’t think that would be possible politically here in Massachusetts. Other reforms, and enhanced authority under Federal law, certainly.
In addition to the political reforms, we also need to be sure their technical analysis is state-of-the-art, and handle alternative transportation modes and non-work trips as well as commuting by auto.
I appreciate the four posted comments. Ultimately, the solution to reforming and strengthening MPOs might be through AMPO and other organizations taking the case to the feds and including measures in the new Transportation bill that now is 18 months off. Politicians respond to momentum and pressure!
Mr. Finley: I tried mightily to catch on with the Obama administration in the new urban policy office, but neither I nor my references/advocates (Bayh, Lugar, Lee Hamilton, Ruckleshaus, etc) ever received a response, sorry to say.
For an interesting article on metropolitan development MPOS, check this link with an article by Edward Ziegler of the University of Denver Law School —
eziegler@law.du.edu
The link:
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/property/files/ziegler_megapolitan.pdf
Well said.
This reminds me of two items:
1) a recent paper by Myron Orfield
See:
http://www.irpumn.org/uls/ resources/projects/MPO_Reform. pdf
MPO REFORM: A NATIONAL AGENDA FOR FAIR AND SUSTAINABLE METROPOLITAN GROWTH
and , (2) a report about SANDAG:
http://www.lao.ca.gov/2006/sandag/sandag_033006.htm
SANDAG: An Assessment of Its Role in the San Diego Region
I find the term MPO to be misleading as it lumps bodies of different strengths into same bag. Portland and Twin Cities are regional systems that have more powers than others. However, they too need to be upgraded as comparison with Community of Metropolitan Montreal and European Regional bodies reveals.
Both Myron Orfield and the author support election of officials. That can be problematic as the Canadians have discovered. You need to keep in mind the relation of such bodies with local units creates an integrated federated framework which can be full of tensions. It can lead to dissolution in the extreme. Indirect elections is not necessarily a limitation on productivity as British Columbia’s Regional Districts have illustrated with over a 40 year history.
The real value of such bodies is not merely in service planning;but, in economic development. Regional bodies need to stop need to stop being one-trick ponies. Regional councils need to mature beyond focussing on grants;they need to collaborate on improving economic circumstances from own resources. Become incubators and developers.
Thanks for paying attention to this issue. Fortunately (or unfortunately), we appear to have 18 months to rethink our concept of MPOs. MPO PL funds are among the only consistent Federally-funded urban planning programs operating in the United States. It is time to better leverage this money to develop our regions in a more coherent fashion.
It is very unlikely that MPOs will get land use authority from the Federal government, so we should look toward promoting coordination instead. There is a mismatch between the agency responsible for transportation planning and land use. If the two agencies can come closer together through a hosting arrangement or at least coterminous boundaries, coordination will be much easier.
Current Federal law loosely organizes MPOs around urbanized areas, which are created by the Census Bureau and pay no regard to political boundaries. The end result is that often the MPO’s plan only covers a portion of a local government. So how can we expect the local governments to coordinate their land use map with the transportation plan? I propose that MPOs be organized around metropolitan statistical areas instead. MSA’s are coterminous with counties, and that means the MPO would always cover entire units of local government. Further, the geographically-larger MPOs will come much closer to the boundaries of Councils of Government and NAAQS Conformity airsheds. Establishing MPOs based on MSAs more accurately reflects the true boundaries of a region, while simultaneously reducing the total number of MPOs nationwide.
You are absolutely right that MPOs need the authority to issue bonds and fund programs of their own. Recently, a Florida MPO discovered that no mechanism existed for the MPO to supplement a traffic-operations program called the “Road Rangers” that was cut back in the state budget. The draft reauthorization introduced to the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit includes several provisions for MPOs to build their own projects, so there is a good chance MPOs will have some authority in this area soon.
I am mixed on your suggestion of having directly-elected members on the MPO governing board. One idea could be to have the public elect the chair of the board, but have the rest of the board filled like they are today.
You might also want to keep this in mind:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/warning-oil-supplies-are-running-out-fast-1766585.html
Warning: Oil supplies are running out fast
An essential point in Mr. Hudnut’s argument needs emphasis: To be effective and do good, MPOs have to be more than transportation planning agencies. They have to become regional land use planning agencies, or better yet be embedded within robust regional land use planning agencies. Otherwise, they are too likely become simply more powerful tools of parochial development and construction interests. The examples Mr. Hudnut gives of effective MPOs – SACOG, Portlands Metro, DVRPC – are the ones that do regional land use planning (though each of them is very different in structure and powers.) To take on those zoning and related powers, these agencies would also need new state enabling legisation and upgraded governance structures. Federal legislation alone could not directly override traditional land use authority, but federal legislation could and should provide authorities and incentives to states to make MPOs into genuine regional planning agencies.
As an aside, the New Jersey Pinelands is an anomoly of a different kind. The Pinelands Commission is a very powerful regional land use planning agency, but it is not the MPO and has no direct authority over transporration planning or spending. That makes no more sense than haveing MPOs with no role in land use planning.
Appreciate your focusing on the role of MPOs. One concern I’ve heard raised about MPOs is that they are not always based on proportionate representation — with the core city often being underrepresented in
terms of voting power. Another concern is the “quid pro quo” nature of trading support for transportation projects — i.e., if you support the project my community wants, we’ll support yours. How do you focus on what will be of long-term, region-wide benefit when MPO representatives are usually appointed by individual municipalities and are expected to ensure, first and foremost, that their municipality’s interests are met?
My own views of MPOs, I have to admit, are somewhat colored by the fact that I’ve been involved with a citizens group that for many years has been battling with our MPO over the planned construction of a major belt highway. The MPO has long been one of the major proponents of this project, in large part because several of the suburban communities badly want this roadway built. Dealing with short-term perceived traffic congestion issues (something that representatives on our MPO, who are generally members of their local governing body, view as a priority for their constituents) has trumped more thoughtful long-term transportation strategies.
I wouldn’t support giving MPOs more authority without making them more democratic. MPOs need to be accountable to the public like any other governmental institution. In some regions, e.g., Portland, this is already the case. In other cases, e.g., California, it is not. I do not see the point of any ex officio members. If the agency is not fully accountable like every other public agency, its authority should not be increased.
We don’t live in a perfect world and for many reasons, I don’t believe there is a “perfect model” MPO. MPO’s come in different sizes and if you have experience with MPOs you know no two are alike. A realist, I don’t think Congress, the President and state legislatures have the political will to wrest land use decision-making authority from the control of local elected officials and give it to MPOs. MPOs are going to be challenged with new federal mandates they do not have the authority to enforce. It remains to be seen if they will be provided with the training, tools and funding to do what is asked. As an MPO director, I am hoping that relationships can be built with the communities within MPOs, with builder/developers and with the public so that we can all better understand the relationship between our land use and transportation decisions and how these decisions affect the quality of our lives and the air we breathe. It hasn’t gone well so far, but I am optimistic.
Oregon’s transportation planning system includes “Area Commissions on Transportation” – regional bodies that work along side MPOs. ACTs role is to promote public involvement in regional decision making, and improve project prioritization across MPO jurisdictions. see more
http://www.ruraltransportation.org/uploads/oractrpt.pdf