Multi-MPO Planning: Prospects and Practices

Examples of Multi-MPO Planning

Researchers from APA and CQGRD conducted qualitative case study research to learn more about multi-MPO planning in three distinct areas of the country (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Multi-MPO Planning Collaboratives. Sources: HEPGIS, Esri, HERE.

The research team, in consultation with FHWA staff, selected these three multi-MPO planning collaboratives based on their reputations for sustained coordination and collaboration over many years. Through this process, APA and CQGRD staff reviewed MPO and partner plans, improvement and work programs, studies, formal agreements, meeting records, and websites. The team also interviewed senior MPO and local government staff members in each coordination area.

The following sections provide brief snapshots of each collaborative and summarize their multi-MPO planning experiences.

San Joaquin Valley Regional Policy Council

The San Joaquin Valley Regional Policy Council (SJVRPC) collaborative's combined planning area comprises the southern half of California's Central Valley, with a contiguous area of more than 27,000 square miles and an estimated population of more than four million residents (Figure 5). The collaborative's name refers to a joint policy board established through a memorandum of understanding among eight MPOs (SJVRPC 2006). Since 1992, these MPOs and their partners have been collaborating on long-range transportation planning.

Figure 5. Constituent MPO Planning Areas and Urbanized Areas of the San Joaquin Valley Regional Policy Council. Sources: HEPGIS, Esri, HERE.

California's San Joaquin Valley (SJV) is among the most productive agricultural regions in the world, and its position between the major population centers of Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area makes it an attractive location for logistics and distribution facilities. However, the SJV suffers from poor air quality, high unemployment, and low educational attainment rates. Because it has few physical impediments to urban expansion, the SJV's urbanized areas have primarily been spreading out from city centers, rather than densifying through infill development.

In response to these challenges, the SJV MPOs have entered into multiple interlocal collaborative planning agreements (Table 3) and produced multiple joint work products (Table 4).

Table 3. Key Interlocal Agreements Among the San Joaquin Valley MPOs

Table 4. Key Joint Work Products of the SJVRPC

The SJVRPC meets in person roughly quarterly, while a staff-level coordinating committee meets monthly (SJVRPC 2019a). Beyond these regular meetings, the SJVRPC hosts an Annual Policy Conference to discuss issues that affect the entire San Joaquin Valley and leads annual trips to Sacramento and Washington, D.C., to discuss regional concerns with state and federal legislators.

While the SJVRPC exhibits a high level of integration, parochial interests can make it difficult to reach consensus. Some counties are primarily focused on protecting their rural economies, while others are primarily oriented toward supporting job growth and housing development in urban areas.

Nevertheless, the SJVRPC illustrates several noteworthy multi-MPO planning practices:

• Aligning long-range planning schedules. This maximizes opportunities to share information, harmonize strategies, and speak with a unified voice.
• Formalizing a collaborative relationship through multiple Memorandums Of Understanding (MOUs). This has sent a powerful signal to state and federal partners as well as their respective constituencies that they are committed to working together to find mutually beneficial solutions.
• Adopting an overall work program and shared legislative and funding priorities. This allows the SJV MPOs to act as a counterbalance to the more populous, affluent, and heavily urbanized MPOs in their state.
• Meeting regularly. Monthly and quarterly meetings of the SJVRPC and staff provide a convenient mechanism for learning about projects, programs, and initiatives across the valley.
• Contracting with private firms. This extends the collaborative's capacity by providing planning services on behalf of all SJV MPOs.
• Addressing collaborative planning efforts in all long-range transportation plans. Including a chapter or appendix discussing the SJVRPC's work in each constituent LRTP provides a convenient primer for local officials and engaged citizens who may be unfamiliar with the scope and accomplishments of those efforts.
• Sharing information with the public. Posting information about collaborative efforts through a publicly accessible website heightens transparency.

New York Metropolitan Area Planning Forum

The New York Metropolitan Area Planning (MAP) Forum collaborative's combined planning area comprises parts of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, with a contiguous area of more than 10,000 square miles and an estimated population of nearly 23 million residents (Figure 6). The collaborative's name refers to a consortium of nine agencies, representing a total of 10 MPOs, committed to cooperative transportation planning and decision making.

Figure 6. Constituent MPO Planning Areas and Urbanized Areas of the New York Metropolitan Area Planning Forum. Sources: HEPGIS, Esri, HERE.

The combined planning area of these MPOs functions as a single commuter shed, and it includes multiple urbanized areas that cross MPO jurisdictional boundaries. In response to these conditions, the SJV MPOs have entered into interlocal collaborative planning agreements (Table 5) and produced joint work products (Table 6).

Table 5. Key Interlocal Agreements Among the MAP Forum MPOs

Table 6. Key Joint Work Products of the MAP Forum

The MAP Forum met annually from 2008 through 2017, and in 2018 began meeting twice a year, in spring and autumn. These meetings provide the MPOs with regular opportunities to discuss issues and projects that transcend planning area boundaries. They facilitate relationship building and allow members to explore joint needs and potential areas for collaboration in the foreseeable future.

Beyond official MAP Forum meetings, members routinely communicate informally at the staff level, including sharing data and drafts of work products, and occasionally present information at other members' board or committee meetings.

Varying organization capacities and differences in state requirements and expectations for MPOs are the primary factors limiting multi-MPO planning in the MAP Forum coordination area. Member MPOs have planning area populations ranging from less than 200,000 to nearly 13 million, and the two largest MPOs, New York MTC and New Jersey TPC, have much larger budgets and staff sizes than the other MPOs. Meanwhile, some MAP Forum states grant their MPOs more autonomy to pursue activities that go beyond federal requirements than others. Furthermore, these states have different timelines for planning processes, which makes it difficult for member MPOs to synchronize their planning and programming schedules.

Nevertheless, the MAP Forum illustrates several noteworthy multi-MPO planning practices:

• Establishing regular meetings to share information. This helps members stay on top of emerging issues, develop an awareness of the perspectives of neighboring MPOs, and discuss shared priorities.
• Using a division of labor. This allows higher-capacity MPOs to supplement the expertise of lower-capacity MPOs.
• Formalizing coordination and collaboration commitments, without creating a new formal governance mechanism. This reduces the administrative burdens for member MPOs from different states.
• Maintaining open lines of communication. This helps member MPOs respond to new funding opportunities and select better projects.

Southeast Florida Transportation Council

The Southeast Florida Transportation Council (SEFTC) collaborative's combined planning area comprises the three southernmost mainland counties in Southeast Florida, with a contiguous area of more than 5,000 square miles and an estimated population of more than six million residents (Figure 7). The collaborative's name refers to a joint policy board established through an interlocal agreement among the three MPOs responsible for planning in the Miami urbanized area.

Figure 7. Constituent MPO Planning Areas and the Urbanized Area of the Southeast Florida Transportation Council. Sources: HEPGIS, Esri, HERE.

Low-density development patterns and historically auto-centric transportation investments present challenges for mobility and transportation improvements across Southeast Florida. These conditions are further reinforced by a growing population: the tri-county area is projected to increase by 1.4 million residents between 2010 and 2040 (SEFTC 2015a).

In response to these challenges and as explicitly enabled under Florida law (see Table 1), the SEFTC MPOs have entered into multiple interlocal collaborative planning agreements (Table 7) and produced multiple joint work products (Table 8).

Table 7. Key Interlocal Agreements Among the SEFTC MPOs

Table 8. Key Joint Work Products of the SEFTC

Following several years of informal coordination, the three Southeast Florida MPOs created the SEFTC through an interlocal agreement in January 2006 (SEFTC 2006). This agreement stipulates that the SEFTC will develop a joint LRTP, processes for prioritizing projects and public involvement, and performance measures to gauge the effectiveness of coordination activities.

Since its establishment, the SEFTC has typically met two to four times per year to discuss long-range planning processes, priority projects, and performance measures. The SEFTC has also created five staff-level coordinating committees, which generally meet quarterly to develop recommendations to SEFTC on technical matters. Beyond this, the three MPOs jointly host an annual Safe Streets Summit that brings together local and regional stakeholders to discuss active transportation and mobility topics in a regional context.

While SEFTC MPOs are responsible for planning across a single urbanized area, the coordination area is split between two FDOT districts and two regional planning councils. Reporting to different FDOT districts adds a layer of bureaucratic complexity to the process of developing shared goals and priorities, and having multiple regional planning agency partners provides both opportunities for interregional coordination and challenges associated with building consensus.

The SEFTC illustrates several noteworthy multi-MPO planning practices:

• Aggregating individual LRTP priorities in a joint LRTP. This can streamline the process of developing a joint LRTP.
• Aligning long-range planning schedules. This maximizes opportunities to share information, harmonize strategies, and speak with a unified voice.
• Formalizing a collaborative relationship through an intergovernmental agreement. This sends a powerful signal to state and federal partners as well as the MPOs' respective constituencies that they are committed to working together to find mutually beneficial solutions.
• Meeting regularly. This provides board and staff members with a convenient mechanism for learning about projects, programs, and initiatives across the combined planning area.
• Sharing information with the public. Posting information about collaborative efforts through a publicly accessible website heightens transparency.

Action Steps for Planners

So far, this PAS Memo has framed multi-MPO planning as a necessary response to interrelated transportation, environmental, and economic issues that affect multimodal transportation system performance. And it has provided case studies that show how specific MPOs work together to make progress toward their collective goals. The following sections highlight three critical action steps for planners to help them build multi-MPO planning collaboratives for the communities they serve.

The first step is to identify shared priorities. After this, planners can help strengthen these collaboratives by leading or facilitating the process of drafting formal commitments. Finally, planners can help ensure the long-term efficacy and value of multi-MPO planning efforts by developing and monitoring performance measures.

Identify Shared Priorities

Every planning issue that transcends MPO boundaries has the potential to be either a point of collaboration or a point of conflict for multiple neighboring MPOs. Before MPOs can plan collaboratively with other MPOs, they must have clear overlap in at least some of their priorities.

A shared priority is a collective understanding between or among MPOs that includes both a specific challenge or opportunity and the preferred strategy for responding to this challenge or opportunity (Table 9). Shared priorities help MPOs focus their limited capacities and resources on mutually beneficial planning activities and programmatic investments.

Table 9. Examples of Potential Shared Priorities

While there is no set way to identify shared priorities, planners working for MPOs often learn about potential shared priorities through presentations or informal networking at conferences or peer exchange workshops, through formal notification and consultation processes involving neighboring MPOs, or by reviewing neighboring MPOs' planning documents.

Typically, once an MPO has identified a potential shared priority, the next step is to invite potential partner MPOs to participate in a focused conversation at a regularly scheduled policy board or technical advisory committee meeting or a special convening. Once all partner MPOs have reached a tentative agreement on the priority, they still must share this tentative agreement with their policy boards and other regional stakeholders to verify that there is a broad base of support for action.

Strong shared priorities are legitimate and widely embraced (CCI 2019). This means shared priorities must reflect the needs and desires of the stakeholders who are most likely to be affected by collaborative work. Ideally, these stakeholders either articulated the priority themselves or had a meaningful chance to shape the priority.

Additionally, strong shared priorities are appropriately scoped and sufficiently straightforward (CCI 2019). In other words, the challenge or opportunity and the associated strategy must require coordinated or collaborative action by multiple MPOs to succeed, without being overly broad or ambitious, given capacity and resource constraints. The priority should also be easy to state and explain to diverse audiences of stakeholders.

Finally, strong shared priorities are mindful of system interactions and timely (CCI 2019). The priority must be rooted in existing authorities and responsive to interactions with other priorities and actors. And the priority must be taking advantage of a special moment of opportunity (e.g., a change in leadership or public sentiment, a new funding opportunity, emerging technology, etc.).

While shared priorities are a precondition for multi-MPO planning, these priorities naturally evolve over time as stakeholders, resources, and transportation system conditions change. The issue that brought MPOs together at one point in time may eventually fade in importance. Consequently, planners working for MPOs must be willing to periodically revisit and help adjust shared priorities.

Formalize Commitments

Most coordination and collaboration between or among multiple neighboring MPOs is informal. That is, the MPOs are not parties to a written collaborative agreement, but they do have open lines of communication and may even meet regularly to discuss shared priorities. In some cases, informal collaboration is enough to establish goals and take action on shared priorities. In others, MPOs may struggle to prioritize multi-MPO collaboration in the absence of formal commitments.

Multi-MPO planning collaboratives typically formalize commitments through written agreements. These agreements define the scope and nature of collaboration and may establish a new governance structure — such as a joint policy board, coordinating committee, or unit of government — to facilitate group decision making or manage group activities. The scope and level of specificity in these agreements is often influenced by the size of the individual MPOs, geographic extent of the collaborative, and number of signatories.

While there is no set formula for initiating or negotiating multi-MPO collaborative agreements, planners often play a pivotal role in the process of developing these agreements. Meeting with staff counterparts can be the easiest way to test a potential partner's willingness to enter into a written agreement. These meetings can also help planners working for MPOs identify any potential issues or agreement provisions that might be likely to derail negotiations.

Soliciting feedback from policy boards, transit agencies, and other metropolitan stakeholders is necessary to build the necessary political support for a written agreement. By involving these stakeholders early and throughout the process, planners can enhance transparency and learn more about local concerns.

Identifying the strengths of each potential partner organization can help planners design an agreement that provides meaningful opportunities for MPOs of different sizes and capacities to play a meaningful role in the collaborative. This step can also help narrow the scope of the agreement.

Finally, listing potential joint activities or work products provides a concrete basis for subsequent discussion and negotiation. Often it makes sense to start with a relatively short list of realistic proposed commitments, rather than trying to create a comprehensive wish list of plans, projects, and governance mechanisms.

Each formal commitment requires partners to devote time or other resources. Therefore, it is also important to address how each partner will allocate resources to support the collaborative and to establish a mechanism that allows signatories to revisit the terms of the agreement, either periodically or on an as-needed basis.

Measure Performance

Federal statutes and regulations require MPOs to coordinate their transportation system goals with state and national goals and to measure progress toward achieving these goals within their respective metropolitan planning areas — but this does not address goals that transcend MPO boundaries. Consequently, collaboration between or among multiple neighboring MPOs on performance measurement is an emerging practice.

There are at least three broad categories of metrics that can provide meaningful feedback on the performance of multi-MPO planning efforts: collaboration metrics, work product metrics, and transportation system performance metrics. Generally, these categories correspond to different stages in the development of a multi-MPO collaborative.

Collaboration metrics can provide multi-MPO collaboratives with feedback on interrelationships between or among members and help them characterize their level of effort or commitment. Planners working for MPOs can measure collaboration by documenting the following elements:

• The existence and features of interlocal agreements
• The composition of policy boards and staff committees, including joint boards and committees
• The frequency and level of engagement for any joint meetings and collaborative planning events

Work product metrics can provide multi-MPO collaboratives with feedback on consistency between or among work products and help identify instances where members may be working at cross purposes. Planners can measure work product integration by documenting the following elements:

• References to collaboration and instances of shared goals or objectives in MPO plans and studies
• Transportation improvement and overall work programs
• Other publicly accessible documents and media, including web pages or websites highlighting multi-MPO collaboration

Transportation system metrics can highlight connections between neighboring MPO planning areas to provide valuable feedback on transportation system performance across multiple MPO planning areas. Planners can measure combined planning area performance by selecting metrics that capture information about the following issues, among others:

• Passenger and freight flows across MPO boundaries
• Environmental performance
• Public health

Regardless of type, each metric must have either a direct, or at least theoretical, relationship to one or more shared goals. These goals may be mutual, meaning each MPO has established the same goal for their planning area, or collective, meaning all MPOs agree on a desirable outcome for the combined planning area of the collaborative.

Once planners have generated a list of potential metrics, it is important to screen these metrics against a shared set of criteria to evaluate their feasibility and usefulness. These criteria should, at a minimum, address the effort necessary to collect or calculate data for the metric and the degree of influence members have over the metric.

Conclusion

Multi-MPO planning is a promising approach to managing cross-boundary issues that affect multimodal transportation performance. It can help correct interregional jobs-housing imbalances and transportation network deficiencies that decrease the number of destinations that residents and visitors can safely and conveniently reach by multiple modes of transportation. It can decrease vehicle miles traveled, traffic congestion, and stormwater runoff, leading to improved air and water quality. It can promote business development strategies that emphasize local strengths over interlocal competition. And it can address the inequitable distribution of transportation system benefits and costs.

This Memo presents a wide range of considerations and recommendations for planners working for or with MPOs in areas of the country with multiple neighboring MPO planning areas. While multi-MPO planning is the exception and not the rule, multi-MPO collaboratives in California's San Joaquin Valley, the greater New York metropolitan area, and Southeast Florida show that it can work in a wide range of geographic and institutional contexts. Planners in other parts of the country have opportunities to foster collaboration among MPOs by leading or participating in efforts to identify shared priorities, formalize commitments, and measure performance.

About the Authors

David Morley, AICP, is a research program and QA manager with the American Planning Association in Chicago.

Arthi Rao, PhD, is a research scientist at the Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Catherine Ross, PhD, directs the Georgia Institute of Technology's Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development, where she also serves as serves as Harry West Professor and Advance Professor in the School of City and Regional Planning in the College of Architecture.

Johamary Peña is a research associate with the American Planning Association in Chicago.

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PAS Memo is a bimonthly online publication of APA's Planning Advisory Service. Joel Albizo, FASAE, CAE, Chief Executive Officer; Petra Hurtado, PhD, Research Director; Ann F. Dillemuth, AICP, PAS Editor. Learn more at planning.org/pas.

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