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"Historically, municipalities and regions continually competed for a share of transportation funds. The process was dominated by state Departments of Transportation where cooperation, equity and participation were limited. Eighteen years ago the federal government provided metropolitan areas with the opportunity to play a larger role in the regional transportation process. On December 18, 1991 President George H.W. Bush signed the Intermodal Surface Transportation Equity Act (ISTEA). The legislation ushered in a new era of cooperation between state and local leaders by empowering regional Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs). The federal legislation's intention was to allow a region, through their MPO, to address participation, economic development, social equity and quality of life issues through their transportation policy. The significance and effectiveness of these increased functions has not been determined. The work of other scholars is insufficient to determine whether MPOs are making a difference and led to calls for further research. There was a need for an in-depth examination of MPOs through a comparative case study. This study examines whether Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) make a difference in regional transportation policy-making. It investigates whether MPOs increase public saliency, increase the consideration of social factors (e.g. employment, quality of life and equity) and improve elected official participation in the regional transportation planning process. The study examines six major regional transportation projects: Three projects at the Kansas City MPO; Mid-America Regional Council (MARC), and three projects at the St. Louis MPO; East-West Gateway Council of Governments (EWGCOG). Study results were determined through comparative analysis of the case studies. The evidence suggests MPOs make a difference in four of the five areas examined. They make a difference in public saliency, quality of life, employment factors, and elected official involvement. The means by which an MPO makes a difference include: employing expert consultants, advisory groups, and numerous internal committees brokering political agreements, and managing funds. The cases illustrate that the MPOs powers to coalesce regional cooperation are informal and that MPOs make a reasonable difference in regional transportation policy. The study points toward the need to provide more resources to MPOs."--Abstract.
Planning at a metropolitan scale is important for effective management of urban growth, transportation systems, air quality, and watershed and green-spaces. It is fundamental to efforts to promote social justice and equity. Best Practices in Metropolitan Transportation Planning shows how the most innovative metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) in the United States are addressing these issues using their mandates to improve transportation networks while pursuing emerging sustainability goals at the same time. As both a policy analysis and a practical how-to guide, this book presents cutting-edge original research on the role accessibility plays - and should play - in transportation planning, tracks how existing plans have sought to balance competing priorities using scenario planning and other strategies, assesses the results of various efforts to reduce automobile dependence in cities, and explains how to make planning documents more powerful and effective. In highlighting the most innovative practices implemented by MPOs, regional planning councils, city and county planning departments and state departments of transportation, this book aims to influence other planning organizations, as well as influence federal and state policy discussions and legislation.
In recent decades, many Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) - federally mandated transportation planning agencies in urban areas with populations of 50,000 or more - have become active sustainability planners, integrating their regional transportation plans with land use strategies, and addressing wider impacts upon the regional economy, social equity, and natural environment. MPOs have taken up this stance to address mandated responsibilities that have widened over time, such as for addressing air quality problems and incorporating public and stakeholder input, and as a re-interpretation of their main traditional responsibility, namely to manage transport mobility within regions. Facing a tightening vise of environmental and fiscal constraints, these MPOs have focused on improving accessibility, rather than mobility, through coordinated transport-land use strategies to improve "location efficiency," for example, through promoting infill, mixed-use development located near transit stations. Because this approach requires closer coordination of land use and transportation planning than traditionally pursued, these MPOs have become more activist agencies in working with local governments and their land use policymaking authority. Their work provides a basis for slow but steady advancement of a new sustainability paradigm for transport policy. MPOs, however, face a severe disjuncture between the forces compelling them to advance sustainability goals, on the one hand, and institutional barriers that severely inhibit their ability to accomplish them, on the other. Long-standing governing arrangements in the US federal system sever authority over the elements of growth management that many MPOs now seek to integrate more fully. Constituted mainly as voluntary associations of local governments, MPOs lack independent authority; they control few resources autonomously, and provide instead a coordinating role for long-range transportation investment planning. In spite of the obstacles, some MPOs are experimenting with institutional innovations to integrate transportation and land use planning more effectively, providing a major contribution to sustainability policymaking, which depends on developing new and effective modes of governance for public goods management across all sectors of the economy, including for transportation and land use. Thus, MPOs are at the center of both opportunities and obstacles for advancing sustainable planning practices in the US. This dissertation evaluates how conflicting dynamics of path dependent institutional arrangements for growth management affect sustainability planning by MPOs. It provides a historical institutionalist account of the evolving role and planning strategies of MPOs since their inception in the 1970s, considering why and how some MPOs have begun to address sustainability concerns, and the opportunities and obstacles they face. It theorizes MPO planning practices in connection to concepts from the sustainability planning literature(s), in order to identify characteristics that distinguish MPO sustainability planning from more traditional practice. Using operational measures developed for the purpose, the incidence of sustainability planning by large MPOs across the US is assessed, and factors capable of predicting which MPOs take up sustainability planning techniques are evaluated. Then, findings from an in-depth case study of MPO planning in California are presented - a state where the largest MPOs have been sustainability leaders for more than a decade, and where the state government has recently adopted policy measures to support their efforts. Ultimately, prospects for MPO sustainability planning in California, and by extension elsewhere, are seen to depend substantially upon policy support from the state level, because state governments control land use authority under the US Constitution, and they shape the laws and programs - from fiscal policies such as redevelopment and taxing authority, to planning requirements, affordable housing programs, transit operating funds, and more - that frame local land use decisions more than any other level of government. However, as the California case study shows, striking the right balance between state-level and regional authority for managing "smart growth" programs can be problematic. The work contributes to urban planning and sustainability literatures, because little in-depth attention has been paid by scholars to MPOs as sustainability planners. This lack of attention is unfortunate because the regional scale is critical in sustainability planning, given the many inter-connections among policies for the built environment that play out at that scale. At the same time, because this dissertation focuses especially on MPO institutional and decision-making dynamics, the research makes a contribution to literatures on federalism, multi-level governance, and policy formation and change. In particular, the research addresses questions raised by scholars in those fields about how collaborative governance in multi-level frameworks can help support sustainability.
In August 2006, approximately 125 people assembled in Washington, D.C., to participate in a conference, The Metropolitan Planning Organization, Present and Future. The conference brought together individuals involved in regional governance from national, state, regional, and local agencies and from the public, private, and academic sectors. The conference goals were to explore (a) the organizational structure of metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), including their operating and personnel relationships with other governmental institutions; (b) the current state of the practice for regional decision making among MPOs of various sizes; (c) approaches to integrating a wide array of additional considerations into the MPO planning process, including freight, operations, safety, asset management, and environment; (d) approaches to institutionalizing an integrated approach to comprehensive planning, beyond developing transportation plans; and (e) development of relationships with local decisionmaking bodies within the MPO region that are responsible for carrying out the MPO-developed vision for the region. To plan the conference, the Transportation Research Board (TRB) assembled a committee appointed by the National Research Council to organize and develop the conference program.
Abstract: Since the rise of the automobile, urban planners, and traffic engineers were confronted with the question of balancing the different needs of all users of the street. Over the last decades that balance tended to favor car-oriented street designs. Health and air quality concerns, as well as an aging population have started to challenge the old ways of transportation planning. The heavy reliance on the private vehicle in the U.S. is facilitated by local land use decisions and investments in the public street and highway network were made. As most road projects are funded by federal dollars, metropolitan planning organizations are in a crucial position to increase active transportation options as they manage federal funds and facilitate regional decision making. This thesis will provide a comparative analysis of the approach employed bz two Ohio MPOs of comparable size and transportation budget - the Northeast Ohio Area-wide Coordinating Agency (NOACA; Cleveland) and Mid-Ohio Regional-Planning-Commission (MORPC; Columbus). The thesis will focus on the differences between MORPC's Complete Streets planning approach and NOACA's bicycle and pedestrian planning approach. The thesis analyzes policies and plans through a document review and uses interviews to identify organizational practices and cultures. The cases are described within the four factor categories that impact the implementation of transportation projects: (1) MPO intention and commitment, (2) MPO culture, structures and practices, (3) funding availability, and (4) state and local operating context. One conclusion of this thesis is that while the focus on bike and pedestrian planning tends to create transportation projects that are only focused on one single mode, the focus on users of Complete Streets helps to integrate the needs of different users of the street into every single project. The thesis concludes by outlining different strategies and tools that can be pursued by MPOs to increase the number of Complete Streets and projects that enhance active modes of transportation within the region.
The FTA and FHWA have initiated a series of joint Enhanced Planning Reviews (EPRs) to assess the impact of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) on the planning processes conducted by the transportation agencies serving metropolitan areas. The ERPs are also intended to determine the effects of planning on transportation investment processes. The ERP for Honolulu included a federal site visit from January 9 through January 12, 1995. At the conclusion of the site visit, the team presented preliminary observations and recommendations to the local agencies taking part of the review. The team formulated several additional observations as a result of the further review of documents and notes. This report presents the summary conclusion and a complete set of the observations and recommendations.
Planning at a metropolitan scale is important for effective management of urban growth, transportation systems, air quality, and watershed and green-spaces. It is fundamental to efforts to promote social justice and equity. Best Practices in Metropolitan Transportation Planning shows how the most innovative metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) in the United States are addressing these issues using their mandates to improve transportation networks while pursuing emerging sustainability goals at the same time. As both a policy analysis and a practical how-to guide, this book presents cutting-edge original research on the role accessibility plays - and should play - in transportation planning, tracks how existing plans have sought to balance competing priorities using scenario planning and other strategies, assesses the results of various efforts to reduce automobile dependence in cities, and explains how to make planning documents more powerful and effective. In highlighting the most innovative practices implemented by MPOs, regional planning councils, city and county planning departments and state departments of transportation, this book aims to influence other planning organizations, as well as influence federal and state policy discussions and legislation.