9th National Conference on Transportation
Planning For Small & Medium-Sized Communities
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Session 2: MPOs: Who, What, and How
22 September 2004

Summary

At a session organized by the FHWA Office of Planning, Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), State DOT, and transit agency staff, and others who work with the metropolitan transportation planning process discussed current issues and problems and shared advice and solutions. Major topics included in the facilitated discussion were organizational structure, financial planning, and the role of transit in the MPO process.

Advice from the group included:

• Use a variety of tactics to get the key players involved
• Encourage cooperation between jurisdictions by promoting regionalism
• Take advantage of the resources offered by state DOT and FHWA division office
• Look beyond transportation organizations for funding
• Consider innovative project funding sources, such as grants from wellness foundations or FTA‘s United We Ride Program

I. MPO Organizational Structure

Who are the major participants in your metropolitan transportation planning process?

Participation in the MPO planning process by the various groups varies from state to state, and from MPO to MPO. The following table identifies a sampling of those groups and organizations who are actively involved in MPO planning activities.

How do you get the key players involved?

• Using mailing lists / e-newsletters
• Establishing and maintaining websites
• Using a speakers bureau to get information out about the MPO process
• Inviting groups to make presentations to the policy board
• Hiring a public information officer
• Getting stakeholders to recognize that their decisions impact the regional transportation system.

How would you describe the level of cooperation with your partner agencies in conducting the transportation planning process?

Are there specific strategies or actions that you have taken to foster improved cooperation?

Participants noted other strategies:

• Ensure that all jurisdictions are represented on the board.
• Bring in the state DOT to help resolve disputes and explain regional impacts.
• Create Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) to explicitly delineate roles and responsibilities.
• Develop a rating criteria system for the TIP to help take the politics out of the decisionmaking.
• Engage local businesspeople, as they are likely to be listened to by the decisionmakers.
• Weight the votes to ensure that no one jurisdiction monopolizes the process.

What is the role of the state DOT with respect to the transportation planning process?

When discussing the appropriate level of involvement for the state, attendees agreed that providing resources and technical support were helpful. Disseminating information between the MPOs was also encouraged. For example, The Maine DOT holds a one-day conference for all four MPOs each year to share lessons learned and new ideas.

Involvement in the day-to-day affairs of the MPO depends on the maturity of the MPO and the presence of local leadership, but may also vary according to the preference of the MPO. Attendees agreed that involvement of the state tends to be highest in the years immediately after the establishment of a new MPO and then taper off.

As noted above, attendees felt that encouraging regional thinking and cooperation between jurisdictions are appropriate roles for the state DOT.

What procedure do you use for making administrative changes to MPO documents?

Many MPOs have a simplified procedure in place for making administrative changes to MPO transportation planning-related documents without Policy Board or Executive Board approval. Some had set up specific criteria, for example, if a change represents less than X% of the budget, it does not require approval. In another area, an MOU had been signed to formally designate which changes did and did not occur.

II. Financial Planning

Workshop participants noted that historical funding levels were frequently used in forecasting. On the subject of earmarked funding, there was general agreement that they assume the level of earmarked funding the MPO received in the past will continue into the future when preparing their financial projections.

The Oregon DOT did a 20-year economic forecast and distributed it to the MPOs for use in long-range planning.

How do you estimate project costs?

• Work with the primary implementers – local engineers, MPOs – and local banks, which may be able to provide local and regional cost escalation coordinators.
• Hire a consultant or cost estimation coordinator to set up parameters.
• State DOTs may be able to provide MPOs with a project cost estimation system.
• Never underestimate the power of the contingency, especially in engineering and construction. For big projects: put the engineering costs two years ahead (of construction) in the TIP. Also consider using a standard inflation factor in all calculations.

How are federal funds allocated to the MPOs in your state?

• In Yuma, AZ the MPOs sit on the State‘s resource allocation advisory committee of the State Transportation Board. This committee makes decisions on allocating federal funding to the MPOs.
• In Maine, The MPOs went to the state to have the funding share increased from 10% to 22-23%, arguing that the MPO areas represented had 25% of pop and VMT.
• Colorado set up a task force with representatives from the non-metro areas, MPOs, and the state DOT and transportation commission. This helped get some buy-in on the process and led to much more involvement of non-state folks in the process.
• Minnesota is doing a similar thing right now. The districts are broken up by the state – affording the MPOs a seat at the table for allocation of federal funds at the next authorization. They will be deciding, according to weighted criteria, how to spend the funds.
• In Georgia, projects in the long-range plan are ranked by priority. This helps the state DOT allocate its resources.
• In Kentucky, the MPOs create a prioritized unscheduled needs list, which is given to the DOT to help allocate the resources. This is done to help get the local perspective when making allocation decisions.

What funding sources do you use?

MPOs reported using a wide variety of traditional and innovative funding sources, noted below.

How do you account for Maintenance and Operations costs?

III. Role of transit in the MPO

Attendees reported a wide range of relationships between the MPO and transit. Of the attendees, approximately 10 were from transit organizations or other organizations with a transit operations component. Some MPOs were also the transit authority or operator; still others played a role in coordinating multiple transit systems in their region.

Transit representatives participated in a variety of committees and boards at MPOs. Another common means of participation was to have transit representatives sitting on the technical advisory committee. In cities where transit was a city department, some chose to have separate representatives for the city and the transit agency at the MPO, where others had a single representative for both. In some cases, the transit representative was an ex-officio member.

How do you estimate transit costs and benefits?

Do you coordinate transit services with human services programs?

There was much interest in FTA‘s United We Ride program, which provides funding for coordinating fixed route and paratransit services. The program is designed to help state and local planning organizations find better ways to coordinate paratransit service across user groups. Urban and rural areas can participate; even very low density areas can receive grants. The lead agency will depend on the area. There have been conflicts between federal and local agencies over the appropriateness of using one agency‘s vehicles to serve another‘s mission. This issue is being negotiated at the federal level after the issuance of the Executive Order on Human Service Transportation Coordination (Executive Order 13330).

One area that had received a grant in Arkansas also took advantage of the TPCB Program‘s peer exchange program to hold a peer exchange <www.planning.dot.gov/Peer/Arkansas/arkansas.htm> on the issues of cooperation - central dispatch, coordination of services, publicity, all info for all services. The representative also noted they are creating a pool of drivers across systems by streamlining drug testing and licensing.

Resources for more information on coordination with human services programs:

• United We Ride
• North Dakota State University: Small Urban & Rural Transit Center of the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute
• Montana State University: Western Transportation Institute
• Community Association for Rural Transportation (CART) in Harrisonburg, VA has done work on the logistics of cost sharing
• AARP Research on Mobility of an aging population

Appendix

Summary of Attendance

The half-day workshop was held as a preliminary event to TRB‘s 9th National Conference on Transportation Planning For Small & Medium-Sized Communities in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

There were 72 people from 28 US states and one Canadian province in attendance. These included representatives from Federal, State, and local agencies as well as consultants and academicians. The workshop was intended for new MPOs (there were five). However, there were at least twice that many of the older MPOs who had new MPO directors in attendance. In general, the participants, novice to expert, indicated a desire to learn from their peers no mater what level of expertise they individually held.

State and Provincial Representatives:

Transportation Planning & Environment Resources:

• USDOT Transportation Planning Capacity Building Program
• FHWA Planning, Environment, & Realty Services
• FTA Transportation Planning & Environment