| 1990 Census Population | 56,718 |  |
|---|---|---|
| Central City | Fredericksburg, Virginia | |
| Air Quality Status (1990) | Stafford County: nonattainment, serious (ozone). Part of the DC nonattainment area. | |
| Governor Designation Date | November 18, 1992 | |
| Voting Policy Board Members |
City of Fredericksburg (two elected
officials and the chief administrator) |
|
| Non-Voting Policy Board Members |
Caroline CountyKing George
County | |
| PL and 5303 Funding (Year of Designation) | $105,989 in FY 94 | |
| Initial Staff Size | 2 | |
| Initial Staff Location | Rappahannock Area Development Commission (RADCO) | |
| Modeling Responsibility | VDOT | |
| GIS Responsibility | RADCO | |
| AQ Conformity Responsibility | Northern Virginia MPO | |
| Contacts | Bill Shelley, RADCO
(540) 373-2890 Frank Hancock, VDOT (804) 786-7735 |
The Fredericksburg urbanized area was designated after the 1990 Census and included the City of Fredericksburg and portions of the counties of Stafford and Spotsylvania. The Fredericksburg Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (FAMPO) was created in 1992 and has a planning area that includes the city, as well as all of the two partially urbanized counties. The policy board has eleven members:
· Two elected officials from City of Fredericksburg
· The city
manager from the City of Fredericksburg
· Two elected officials from
Stafford County
· The Stafford County administrator
· Two elected
officials from Spotsylvania County
· The Spotsylvania County
administrator
· Representative of the Secretary of Transportation
(VDOT headquarters staff)
· Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation
Commission (PRTC)
Non-voting members of FAMPO include the Federal Transit and Federal Highway Administrations, the two other counties that comprise the planning district (Caroline and King George), and two other state transportation agencies (rail and aviation). FAMPO has two standing committees-the technical committee and the transportation advisory committee (a public advisory committee).
Initial Steps to Formation
The City of
Fredericksburg had been aware roughly a year in advance that it would be
designated an urbanized area. Once this designation became official, the
Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) sent a letter to the local
governments informing them of the designation and announcing that VDOT
would hold informational meetings in Fredericksburg. At the first of these
meetings, VDOT officials drew on their experience with the eight other
MPOs in the state to explain the different options available to
Fredericksburg in the areas of policy board membership, memoranda of
understanding, and staffing. They also provided a broad overview of the
duties and responsibilities of an MPO under the newly legislated ISTEA.
One unique feature of the Fredericksburg urbanized area that affected the membership of the policy board and the study area boundary was that a portion of Stafford County was included in the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board's (TPB) non-attainment area. TPB is the MPO for the Washington, D.C. area. Stafford County had the option of becoming a member of TPB or FAMPO, or being split so that the part of the county in the non-attainment area became part of TPB while the rest became part of FAMPO. With a recommendation from VDOT, Stafford elected to make the entire county part of the new MPO. Stafford's success in having the entire county included resulted in Spotsylvania County making a similar request, although it is very unlikely that the entire county would become urbanized over the following twenty years. The inclusion of Spotsylvania in its entirety avoided a situation of asymmetry in FAMPO, both geographically (the counties lie on opposite ends of the city) and in terms of policy board representation among the local governments.
The overall process of going from Fredericksburg's designation as an urbanized area to the creation of FAMPO took about four months. The MPO staff identified the leadership from VDOT as contributing to the non-confrontational atmosphere that surrounded the MPO's formation. The head of VDOT's planning department came in and said, "here are the different ways you can do this" and followed with examples from the state's other MPOs (particularly the two formed after the 1980 Census). The VDOT planning director was a strong believer in technical committees and the inclusion of member government chief elected officials on the policy board. As a result the creation of the Technical Committee occurred at that first meeting, and the policy board was created so that local elected officials would have a prominent role (three representatives from each county and the city, two of which were elected officials). The Technical Committee consists of technical personnel from the FAMPO localities and regional, state and federal transportation agencies. The Committee is responsible for developing recommendations for the policy board. The VDOT official indicated that policy board composition was a big issue at the first meetings. Although there was some initial concern on the part of some local officials about the creation of another layer of bureaucracy, most attendees at that meeting responded to the VDOT presentations by saying "this is the law, so let's do it."
Although an initial lag between the time VDOT and local officials were notified of the urbanized area designation and the date of the release of the urbanized boundary map delayed the start of MPO discussions somewhat, the process of going from the first meeting in Fredericksburg to MPO designation lasted only about four months. The package sent to the Secretary of Transportation and the Governor included a cover letter and a copy of the MOU. Planning area boundary maps were not included, since FAMPO included the three jurisdictions (Fredericksburg, Stafford and Spotsylvania) in their entirety. Local approval for the MPO was demonstrated by the signature of the chief elected officials of each local government on the cover letter. The official designation was made on November 18, 1992.
ISSUES AND CHALLENGES
Funding Issues
One significant funding issue at
the outset dealt with funding for transportation projects rather than
planning funds. Based on VDOT's recommendation, Stafford County had
elected to join FAMPO although a portion of the county was in the North
Virginia non-attainment area. TPB (Washington, D.C.'s MPO) initially told
them that their share of CMAQ funding would remain with TPB since they
were the organization overseeing air quality conformity work. The
Secretary of Transportation decided that Stafford County was in fact able
to take their CMAQ funds with them to the new MPO.
FAMPO did not receive any federal planning funds from VDOT for the first fiscal year. Since there was insufficient time after formation before the start of the new fiscal year, VDOT produced the TIP for the FAMPO area as part of its statewide programming process. FAMPO members agreed to this arrangement and voted to approve the state's TIP for the area. Since the TIP was created within the statewide process, VDOT and FAMPO agreed that there would be no allocation of federal planning funds to the MPO for the first partial year. In the first full fiscal year, FAMPO received $105,989 in federal planning funds, with an additional $26,500 in state and local match.
Administrative and Technical Support
Another area
of consensus at the initial meeting organized by VDOT was that the
Rappahannock Area Development Commission (RADCO) should house and staff
the MPO. RADCO is an organization that predates FAMPO by several years and
served as the planning district commission (PDC) for Fredericksburg, the
two FAMPO counties, in addition to two other rural counties not included
in the MPO study area (Caroline and King George). There are 21 PDCs in the
state of Virginia. PDCs are creations of local governments with
encouragement from the state. The role of a PDC is to provide technical
assistance in the form of land use planning, mapping, and transportation
planning to member governments.
The existence of RADCO helped in two ways. First, it had provided a tradition of regional cooperation on planning issues that does not always exist in other urbanized areas. Second, RADCO staff already possessed some of the skills needed to undertake the responsibilities of the MPO. In other MPOs in Virginia, PDCs had tended to serve as MPO staff as well. This tradition created a situation where RADCO "had its foot in the door" when early discussions turned toward staff composition. There was unanimous agreement among the local officials. The initial staff consisted of a director and a planner. To this day there remain two RADCO employees that do work exclusively for FAMPO. A RADCO secretary has provided part-time administrative assistance to the MPO as well.
RADCO has historically been responsible for GIS work in three of the five localities in their district, and they have continued to provide that service for the MPO. Prior to the creation of the MPO, RADCO had also hired a consultant to develop a travel demand model. Once the MPO was formed, VDOT purchased the model from RADCO and the state provided modeling assistance to FAMPO. Having a model already in place at the time of startup was a great help for the MPO because there was a lot of work that had to be done right away.
Air Quality
Since the only non-attainment area in
FAMPO was Stafford County, and the county was part of the Northern
Virginia non-attainment area, FAMPO signed an agreement with the TPB
designating them as the agency responsible for air quality conformity
work. This arrangement was reached very quickly over the course of one day
at the annual meeting of Virginia MPOs during the formation of FAMPO.
Representatives from FAMPO talked with the chief transportation planner at
TPB about them conducting air quality conformity analyses. They drafted a
formal agreement and submitted it to the TPB executive director who was in
attendance at the annual meeting. After some minor changes, both directors
were able to approve the agreement on the spot. This Virginia MPO meeting
occurred approximately one year after FAMPO was designated. The agreement
did not feature any financial compensation for TPB's conducting of the
analysis.
MPO Products and Transit Involvement
One of the
first acts of FAMPO after policy board membership and staffing decisions
had been made was the approval of an initial TIP. The MPO was officially
created in November, leaving only a partial fiscal year for the first TIP.
Realizing that they could not produce a TIP based on a fiscally
constrained long-range plan given the timing of the MPO's formation, FAMPO
voted to approve VDOT's six-year programming document to serve as their
TIP. The federal agencies approved this decision. Because of this
arrangement, FAMPO received no federal planning funds during their first
year.
The process for conducting conformity analyses has remained unchanged from the first year. FAMPO submits its Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) or long-range plan projects located in Stafford County to TPB. Then TPB conducts the conformity analysis. The addition of Stafford County projects has not been seen as a problem by TPB, as including the small number of extra projects requires minimal effort.
Although Fredericksburg Regional Transit (FRED) provides local transit service on six routes in the city, the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission (PRTC) has the highest transit ridership in the area and is a voting member of the FAMPO board. According to the VDOT official, PRTC has played an active role on the board and they "really bring a transit vote to the table." He attributes their involvement in TIP development and other MPO processes to the fact that they are interested in the competition their trains get from the roadway network (PRTC operates the Fredericksburg to Washington commuter rail line). On a recent HOV analysis, PRTC was very active in ensuring that the scope was changed to evaluate the amount of increased HOV ridership that could be attributed to a loss in transit ridership.
Conclusion
The formation of FAMPO, when compared
with that of several other smaller MPOs studied, was noteworthy for its
consensus and a seamless transition. This easy transition to an MPO
structure can be attributed to the pre-existence of regional planning
entities in Virginia, as well as the leadership exhibited by state
transportation officials, both before and after the urbanized area
designation was announced. Preparation of local officials in the
Fredericksburg area before completion of the Census made it easier for
VDOT to focus those officials on the important decisions they had to make
once the designation was announced. And although the federal agencies were
not involved directly during these early meetings, the number and variety
of MPOs that already existed in Virginia provided VDOT officials with
sufficient experience with the pros and cons of different organizational
structures, in addition to familiarity with federal transportation laws
and regulations.
Note: Two individuals involved in the early years of the Fredericksburg Area MPO were contacted for this study. One is an employee of the Virginia Department of Transportation and they other is an MPO staff person who worked in the Stafford County planning department at the time the MPO was formed.
Due to time constraints, VDOT produced the first TIP and UPWP. FAMPO received no PL/5303 funds.
Source: FAMPO website