Metropolitan Planning Organizations Reviewed

Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) are the conduit through which billions of federaland state transportation dollars are funneled annually for regional transportation facilities. MPOtransportation investments are guided by regional transportation plans focusing on short and longterm improvement needs. Because transportation investments shape land use patterns, decisionsby MPOs have important implications for regional land use patterns and, by implication, socialand economic opportunity. For their part, MPO decisions are made by boards whosecomposition vary widely across the nation. They are not generally elected to serve on the MPO,however, and there are few federal requirements affecting board voting and representation.Questions arise about the potential for MPO decisions to be biased, favoring certain investmentsbeneficial to particular metropolitan areas interests at the expense of others - with concern beingexpressed over whether these organizations adequately represent diverse social and economicconstituencies.

In this paper authors Thomas W. Sanchez and James F. Wolf review MPOs generally, and then examines social equity issuesfrom the perspective of transportation planning actions and political representation. Particularattention is given to the variation in MPO voting structures, and transportation equity/planningactivities undertaken by 50 large MPOs.

[Editor's note: The link below is to a 300K PDF document.]

Thanks to Chris Steins