In the midst of an important debate in Washington, D.C., over the future of America's transportation funding, a report issued this month by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified several challenges facing regional transportation policy-making organizations known as Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs).
The report's recommendations, including the possible implementation of performance measures and the allocation of more funding for advanced modeling, could be debated as soon as this fall. If this debate doesn't trigger significant changes for the operation of MPOs, competition for relatively stagnant funding sources will continue to escalate.
The Current Legislative Fight
Last week the U.S. House of Representatives voted to approve extending the funding bill for the nation's highway and transit programs until the end of the year. However, President Obama and some key members of the U.S. Senate support an 18-month extension that would put off the potentially controversial topic until 2011. If the House and Senate fail to reach an agreement on an extension by Wednesday night, $8.7 billion in federal highway project funds to states will be rescinded.
Even if an extension is approved, congressional leaders will have to pass a new transportation funding bill after the extension expires. The House proposal, sponsored by House Transportation Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.), would significantly increase federal transportation investments.
[UPDATE: The Senate failed to pass an extension to the transportation funding bill, meaning that the U.S. Department of Transportation is now legally obligated to begin rescinding the $8.7 billion in federal highway project funds to states. It is not yet clear how quickly the money will be rescinded and how much each state will be impacted. For more information, click here.]
Although the bulk of the transportation funding bill will be allocated to highways and transit, federal funding for MPOs is also included. The White House has pushed for $310 million in new funding to help state departments of transportation and MPOs collect usage and ridership data for transportation projects.
An agreement on how to pay for the proposed funding increases in the transportation bill has so far eluded Congress.
The Funding Competition
Federal legislation in 1973 required the formation of an MPO for any urbanized area with a population greater than 50,000 people. MPOs serve as transportation policy-making and planning organizations for local governments and regions. Most MPOs also integrate land use into their planning models by considering the potential transportation impacts of proposed comprehensive plan amendments and zoning changes.
There are more than 380 MPOs in the U.S., including 11 in Washington State. The best-known of Washington's MPOs is the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC), which doubles as the Regional Transportation Planning Organization required by Washington State's Growth Management Act.
Not all MPOs serve large metropolitan areas such as greater Seattle. According to the GAO report, about 52 percent of the country's MPOs represent populations of fewer than 200,000 people. Only 11 percent represent populations of greater than 1 million. The largest 100 MPOs are home to more than 65 percent of the country's population.
MPOs are funded by a variety of federal programs. Metropolitan planning funds, also known as PL funds, constitute the bulk of federal funding for MPOs. Despite the creation of many more MPOs across the country since 1991, these funds have increased by only 0.25 percent in the same time period.
In a July letter to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (AMPO) expressed concern that states might distribute some of the losses they would incur in the possible rescission of $8.7 billion in transportation funding by reducing the PL funding already committed to MPOs. AMPO argued that doing so would be illegal, but it is unclear what affected states might try to do if the transportation funds were rescinded.
According to Charlie Howard, Director of Transportation Planning for PSRC, larger metropolitan areas like the central Puget Sound region are faced with more complicated planning problems than smaller regions. More cities and counties are reaching the population threshold of 50,000 and forming MPOs; because PL funds are distributed to states proportionally based on population, an increase in the number of MPOs in a state results in more MPOs competing for that state's allotment of PL funds.
After the 2000 census, three more MPOs were added to Washington State—in Skagit County, the Wenatchee Valley and the southeast corner of the state, which is included in the same metropolitan area as Lewiston, Idaho.
Given the population growth in Washington in the past decade, it is possible that additional areas might reach the MPO population threshold following the 2010 census. (For example, a 2008 report by Washington's Office of Financial Management estimated the population of the Walla Walla/College Place urban area at nearly 46,000).
Performance Measures
One of the more significant changes called for by the GAO report is the inclusion of performance measures into the planning process. The report noted that making the planning process more performance-based could improve transportation investment decision making.
While Howard said that planners do pay attention to project performance, he believes it would be unfair to hold MPOs accountable for reaching performance standards when MPOs typically don't have the authority to implement their plans. "Project selection authority rests mostly with the states," Howard said. "MPOs can only do what they have the authority to do."
The GAO report acknowledged this disconnect between proposed performance standards and the relatively narrow authority enjoyed by most MPOs. However, the report also cited other officials who thought the implementation of broader performance goals at the national level could be supplemented with specific measures and targets left for states and regions to establish themselves. Still other officials noted that since MPOs are purposed with establishing a regional consensus on long-term transportation goals, it would be appropriate to measure those goals against specific outcomes.
MPO Debate Could Happen Soon
The GAO report also recommended increasing the flexibility of the use of federal transportation planning funds. Currently, funds earmarked for planning are off-limits to activities that "clearly extend beyond transportation planning." According to the report, 90 percent of MPOs responding to GAO's survey said that the effectiveness of the overall planning process could be improved by allowing some of those funds to be spent on things such as environmental analyses.
The report also mentioned one proposal to raise the population threshold required for a region to attain MPO responsibilities. That proposal made it into the first draft of Rep. Oberstar's transportation funding bill. Such a proposal would likely leave pre-existing small MPOs alone, but limit the introduction of new MPOs to regions that reach a higher population level.
If advocates of a shorter extension for the federal transportation bill in the House prevail, these potential questions would have to be resolved before the end of 2009. Although most policy debates regarding MPOs are not likely to garner a lot of headlines, they seem likely to result in significant changes in how MPOs are funded and how they operate.
