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Challenges in Transportation Planning: A Review of Florida's Metropolitan Planning Organizations |
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Margaret A. Marshall and Edward A. Mierzejewski, Ph.D., P.E.
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CUTR conducted a review of Florida's 25 MPO long-range transportation plans and held interviews with MPO staff, to gain a comprehensive understanding of the transportation planning challenges facing Florida's metropolitan regions. Concerns common to nearly all regions included: funding shortfalls, determining innovative financing strategies, involving the public, maintaining a mobility/livability balance, and air quality conformance. Many identified ISTEA's planning factors, considering alternative land use scenarios, project selection criteria, and intergovernmental coordination as major issues during plan development. Placing greater emphasis on policy tradeoffs and less reliance on transportation planning models, applying the principles of strategic planning to the transportation planning process, and incorporating a strong visioning process are suggested for future plan updates.
Since their creation in 1975, Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) have been required to plan for alternative transportation modes, as well as encourage public participation in the transportation planning process. Passage of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) broadened the role of metropolitan transportation planning to include better integration of modes, increased public involvement, adherence to clean air standards, and development of congestion management strategies, in accordance with ISTEA's Metropolitan Planning Factors. The legislation shifted the focus of planning away from increasing capacity through new highway construction, to solving congestion by expanding travel mobility. ISTEA required that all modes of transportation--highways, mass transit, bikeways, and pedestrian ways--as well as airports, seaports, and intermodal facilities be considered as an integrated system.
ISTEA also charged metropolitan and state transportation agencies with improving coordination of their planning efforts. The Act stressed roadway connectivity within and outside the boundaries of urbanized areas, as well as analysis of the impacts of transportation policy decisions on land use. Long-range transportation plans and programs were to be consistent with land development plans. There was also a reaffirmation to consider the overall social, economic, energy, and environmental effects of transportation decisions. Underlying all of these planning considerations was the mandate that long-range transportation plans be financially constrained and balanced against future revenue sources.
This review of Florida's metropolitan area long-range transportation plans, which were developed under consideration of the ISTEA planning factors, as well as the Florida ISTEA requirements, determined that most of the state's 25 MPOs were addressing these factors in their transportation plans. In fact, the goals and objectives articulated in many of the long-range transportation plans closely mirror the ISTEA factors, resulting in plans that have strong similarities in structure and policy direction. The question remains, however, as to whether metropolitan planning agencies are merely complying with legislative requirements or are indeed following the intent of the Act. For example, despite close correlation between the ISTEA factors and the MPO goals and objectives, in many metropolitan areas, it was difficult to see how the ISTEA factors were reflected in the specific projects evaluated in the plan. Few regions have programmed funding for intermodal projects, specified areas in which rights-of-way need to be preserved, or programmed money for safety improvements to existing or planned facilities. In fact, most of the metropolitan planning organizations address only road widening projects in their financially feasible long-range plans.
The following section is a general overview of the issues and policies that are contained collectively in Florida's 25 MPO long-range transportation plans. Each plan was reviewed to gain an understanding of the prevailing issues facing the different urbanized areas in the state, including funding shortfalls or financing strategies, environmental or air quality concerns, population growth, or issues dealing with the mobility/livability balance in different communities.
In developing the needs assessments of the long-range plans, virtually every metropolitan planning organization relied on the Florida Standard Urban Transportation Modeling Structure (FSUTMS). Based on the FSUTMS forecasts, roadway deficiencies are assessed, and roadway capacity and/or transit services are added to the network until the system can better accommodate projected demand. Projected demand is, generally, first determined by distributing population and employment growth throughout the different traffic analysis zones (TAZs) that, collectively, represent the entire study area. Based on this land use scenario, the model performs trip generation, trip distribution, and network assignment of future travel demand. The result is that forecast roadway capacity deficiencies drive the planning process.
Some MPOs did consider land use adjustments. In the Gainesville Urbanized Area long-range plan, the Activity Centers Enhancement Alternative considered transportation investments and land use adjustments to support the development of the area's existing and emerging activity centers. The Brevard MPO considered the shift of population growth to better achieve a desired jobs/housing balance. The Tallahassee/Leon County MPO's long-range plan differed from most plans, in that three distinct land use scenarios were used in analyzing level-of-service deficiencies.
Population growth rates are another challenge in many of the smaller MPOs in Florida. Charlotte County, for example, is expected to have a doubling of its population in just three decades. The Naples/Collier County region is also experiencing tremendous growth in population, with a current annual growth rate of 3.32%. The Spring Hill/Hernando County MPO is also experiencing very high growth, at 3.73% per year. The rapid expansion of these metropolitan areas will bring demands on the transportation network that are far different from the demands being placed on the already built-out regions of Broward, or Pinellas Counties, for example. These more densely settled regions experience much slower rates of growth. Pinellas County has only a .37% annual growth rate, but since it is nearly built out, it needs to accommodate increasing demands on overburdened networks with few opportunities for new facilities.
Another challenge facing metropolitan areas during the development of the long-range plans was dealing with the increased authority given to MPOs under ISTEA to influence project selection. This new authority has pushed MPOs to become better consensus builders, working with diverse groups at all levels of government. As a result, building relationships between MPOs and transit agencies, local governments, and state agencies has become one of the challenges facing the major metropolitan areas.
Statewide, the MPOs have defined new processes for identifying and prioritizing which transportation projects are included in the long-range plans. Some have created innovative strategies for determining priorities. For instance, the Broward County MPO developed a seven-factor system to distinguish among improvement priorities, based on the criteria listed below.
Assigned weights were given to projects in each category, based on whether the improvement met the designated criteria. Projects with the highest rating were considered priorities, and were selected as part of the Broward MPO's Cost Feasible Plan.
Florida is one of a handful of states with a legislative mandate to manage future growth. By doing so, a better integration of land use and transportation can be achieved. Florida's Growth Management Act requires the preparation of local government comprehensive plans that are consistent with the State Comprehensive Plan. The Act also mandates concurrency, or the requirement that public facilities and services needed to support development be available concurrent with the impacts of the development. Designed to encourage sustainable long-term growth, the Growth Management Act also required that the plans be financially feasible. Inherent to both the state's Growth Management Act and the Florida ISTEA legislation is the thrust for greater coordination among local governments.
ISTEA's influence on the metropolitan transportation planning process has, in many cases, resulted in greater coordination among different levels of government. A number of MPOs developed their long-range plans as the transportation element of the local government's comprehensive plan, required by Florida's growth management statutes. For example, by coordinating input from public workshops and meetings into both documents, the Charlotte County-Punta Gorda MPO was able to ensure close conformity between the two. In fact, there is complete consistency between the two plans. Each set of goals, objectives, and policies pertains to the agency which adopts the plan.
Some of the MPOs in the state, especially those with numerous municipalities, faced challenges coordinating the differing needs of diverse local governments. The West Palm Beach Urban Study Area, for example, considered the transportation needs of 12 major municipalities. Development of the MPO's long-range transportation plan considered the transportation elements of each of these local comprehensive plans. Critical issues included right-of-way preservation, establishment or maintenance of transportation concurrency exception areas, creation of bicycle and pedestrian facilities, funding strategies, neighborhood preservation, transit and transportation mobility issues, air quality, and level of service standards. Intergovernmental coordination is also proving to be a challenge among counties in the Florida Panhandle. For example, struggles over regionalism and concerns over roadway jurisdiction have impeded efforts to improve the New Pensacola Bay Bridge as a toll facility; the bridge is the connecting route between Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties.
Intergovernmental and regional coordination is also important to maintain the continuity of the network beyond the physical boundaries of one jurisdiction, and to ensure that plans meet regional transportation needs. In the Tampa Bay region, Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties are coordinating their efforts on two Major Investment Studies for transportation corridors that involve both counties. Together with Pasco and Hernando Counties, they have also created the Tampa Bay Area Chairmen's Coordinating Committee, developed to help coordinate regional planning programs and provide policy direction to the four MPOs in Tampa Bay. Similarly, the Orlando Urban Area MPO and the Volusia County MPO have recently formed the Orlando-Volusia MPO Alliance, an intergovernmental partnership charged with identifying regional transportation opportunities and regional transportation issues. Its formation is designed to help the two neighboring jurisdictions coordinate on transportation planning activities, reduce the duplication of efforts, and enhance overall system efficiency.
Overall, this review of the metropolitan areas found the consideration of adjacent jurisdictions to be addressed in many MPO plans. Many emphasized the need to coordinate with adjacent jurisdictions when considering issues such as major investments or hurricane evacuation and emergency preparedness. For instance, the Charlotte County-Punta Gorda and the Sarasota/Manatee MPOs are jointly evaluating a study developed by Sarasota County, to improve coordination and connectivity for hurricane evacuation and traffic circulation.
In many cases statewide, the roads with the most activity and demand, and consequently the most need, also tend to be on the Florida Intrastate Highway System (FIHS). The FIHS system was designated by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) and adopted by the Florida Legislature in 1991, in an effort to preserve regional and statewide transportation mobility. The FIHS is the network of highways essential to the economy, hurricane preparedness, and overall transportation mobility of the State of Florida. The FIHS is defined as the statewide system of limited access and controlled access facilities that allow for high-speed and high-volume traffic movement within the state.
Maximum lane widths on the FIHS, as recently designated by the FDOT, were an issue in some of the larger, more built-out metropolitan regions in the state. In some cases, improvements which had been identified in earlier long-range plans (2010, for example), were not able to be included as priorities in 2015 or 2020 plans, as the facilities were now policy constrained. This was an issue in Broward County, where the Highway Improvements portion of the MPO's needs assessment identified several roadways scheduled to be widened in excess of the state's maximum lane policy. FDOT policies on maximum general use and auxiliary lanes for state facilities played a role in project selection in finalizing the MPO's long-range cost feasible plan.
This review of the MPO long-range plans revealed that many of the metropolitan areas simply do not have adequate funding to meet the demand placed on these facilities. There is a desire among some of the MPOs for direct funding categories, designed to earmark money for specific projects. Many stated that an FIHS funding category would be beneficial when planning for improvements to FIHS facilities.
Several of the metropolitan areas elected not to program improvements to FIHS facilities in their long-range plans, for a variety of reasons. In some MPOs, it was clearly an issue of funding. In Martin County, for example, the money allocated by FDOT was significantly less than needed for improvements on the FIHS. In other metropolitan areas, public opposition to widening some of the FIHS facilities has kept projects from being included in long-range cost feasible plans. For instance, in the Fort Walton Beach Urbanized Area, a project to widen US Highway 98 to six lanes was met with widespread citizen opposition. The roadway, which is on the FIHS, was originally programmed as an eight-lane arterial. Similarly, in the Palm Beach County long-range plan, SR 80 is identified as a future 8-lane controlled access facility. When the plan was adopted, public dissent over this improvement surfaced, as community residents expressed the desire for no more than a 6-lane facility with frontage roads and landscaping.
Without exception, the state's 25 MPOs identified funding shortfalls to be their most pressing problem-citing available or reasonably forecast revenues as inadequate for meeting regional transportation needs. The overriding issue for most metropolitan areas was how to adequately fund the improvements identified in the needs assessment with existing revenues. Nearly all of the MPOs had to make substantial cuts to the needs assessments to meet the financial constraints of developing a cost-feasible plan. Hence, in most metropolitan regions, there remains a large discrepancy between the needs assessments and cost feasible plans. The collective shortfalls identified in the 25 plans amounted to $22.3 billion in 1995 dollars, through the year 2020. If anything, it is believed that this may be a conservative estimate.
One problem in developing a cost constrained plan lies in the initial identification of needs. MPOs generally calculate funding shortfalls by comparing project costs, as identified in the initial needs assessment, against revenues expected to be reasonably available during the twenty-year planning horizon. A fundamental issue relates to how to define needs, as there is no set formula for determining what constitutes needs in one area or another, and no guidelines to determine what needs are practical or impractical for a given region.
In some cases, optimistic population projections translated into unrealistic demands on the transportation network. For example, the Naples/Collier County area has been attracting high numbers of new residents in recent years. The population forecasts initially used in the long-range plan showed an increase from 150,000 to nearly 600,000 between 1990 and 2020. This figure resulted in a needs assessment that identified millions of dollars worth of projects for which revenues were unavailable. Subsequently, a review of the population projections revealed a recent trend of slowed growth between 1990 and 1996. By applying these lower projections to subsequent travel demand model runs, the MPO found that the network was able to run more efficiently and effectively, with fewer failures than with the higher population figures, and with no new problem links.
For many of the state's urbanized areas, a prevailing fiscal challenge is finding alternative or innovative funding sources to pay for needed transportation projects. Local governments may levy a local option motor fuel tax, a local options sales tax, an infrastructure sales tax, and transportation impact fees. Many MPOs indicated a general unwillingness to raise local taxes to better meet transportation needs. For instance, the Jacksonville urbanized area utilizes revenue from a local option sales tax to fund mass transit improvements. Jacksonville has also passed a local option gas tax to fund local road improvements. While this has been acceptable in Jacksonville and in several other regions in the state, many areas find that tax increases for highway improvements are often rejected by voters. A few urbanized areas described such political sensitivities involved with any proposals to raise taxes to pay for transportation improvements, that local officials typically abandoned the option.
A number of metropolitan areas have considered building toll roads, while others have investigated congestion pricing techniques along heavily traveled roadways, not only to generate revenue, but also to reduce travel demand during peak hours of travel. In addition, MPOs rely on locally imposed developer exactions or impact fees, to finance needed roadway improvements. The Hillsborough County MPO proposed deriving portions of local revenue from a Tax Increment Financing plan, establishing special taxing districts around the vicinity of future rail stations. To ensure a backup source of funding, the plan also proposed levying a local option gas tax. A tax which would have been dedicated for transit improvements was recently rejected by the Board of County Commissioners; however, Hillsborough County's community investment (half-cent sales) tax was passed by voters, revenue from which will be dedicated to roads and other public services.
Another financial issue facing MPOs is the uncertainty in revenue projections. Many of the MPOs expressed a high degree of uncertainty in making 20-year financial forecasts. Staff of several metropolitan regions felt that adhering to the 20-year planning horizon forced MPOs to make unrealistic expectations about future project costs and forecast expenditures. Plans to generate local revenue through taxing sources may or may not materialize. The Pinellas County MPO plan addressed the uncertainty it faced trying to predict whether the one-cent increase in the local option sales tax, the Penny For Pinellas, would be approved by voters to fund transportation improvements. The Hillsborough County MPO also proposed funding improvements through an increase in its local tax rate, through implementation of some of its local option gas tax. In the Pinellas County instance, voters approved the sales tax; in Hillsborough County, the Board of County Commissioners rejected the gas tax.
Additionally, difficulty in obtaining specific revenue projections may make it harder for MPOs to submit properly constrained TIPs. Many of the metropolitan regions expressed difficulties in getting timely and reliable information about the availability of state funds. The FDOT completes a five-year work program that identifies funded projects, but the MPOs are required to identify funding for projects twenty years into the future. This difference in planning horizons creates uncertainty over whether funding will be available for certain improvements in the MPO region over the ten, fifteen, and twenty year periods. The Brevard County MPO, for example, expressed uncertainty regarding which projects will receive FDOT funding within their MPO region, especially regarding Interstate funding. Their long-range transportation plan stated that the FDOT has assured the county that state roadways and bridges will be properly maintained consistent with their goals over the planning horizon, although no specific funding commitments for operations and maintenance have been made.
Among the issues raised by several MPOs were three principal public involvement challenges. First among these was the need for expanded resources. Dedicating time and money to public involvement has been more difficult for smaller MPOs, with small budgets and small staffs. Secondly, devising new methods for involving citizens presents a continuing challenge to many MPOs. A report by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) noted that not all public-involvement strategies work for all groups of people. Minorities and low-income groups have been less likely than others to respond to traditional public involvement mechanisms. In addition, many of the public involvement techniques commonly employed by MPOs are often cast aside as the planning process progresses, as feedback and citizen responsiveness to the strategies waver. Finally, MPOs often face difficulties in translating public input into transportation decisions. In the early stages of ISTEA's implementation, public involvement was generally limited and narrow in scope, with citizens getting involved primarily when a contentious issue arose close to home. Given the lack of broad-based involvement, the result has often been that special-interest groups have skewed public opinion in favor of one course of action over another.
Despite these continuing challenges, the GAO found that the requirements for increased public involvement under ISTEA were perceived to be positive. Outreach efforts facilitate informing the public of key regional issues; ensure that projects included in long and short-range plans are those that reflect the needs of a broader populace; and help identify problem projects early in the process. MPO staff members have expressed hope that ISTEA's reauthorization will not become more prescriptive, but will continue to allow flexibility in developing public involvement programs that best suit each individual community.
In many of the MPOs in the state, the St. Lucie and Indian River County MPOs, for example, planners experienced some difficulty in generating public interest in the development of the long-range plan. Unless citizens were specifically impacted by a project, they were not inclined to participate in the process. Larger MPOs, such as the Hillsborough County MPO, engaged in an aggressive public involvement campaign, in which citizens were invited to attend community visioning workshops, as well as town-hall meetings, to discuss strategic issues. The MPO conducted meetings at key activity centers and traffic generators throughout the county, including two area shopping malls. They also mailed public surveys, brochures, and questionnaires to several thousand individuals, organizations, businesses, neighborhood groups, and other agencies.
An issue in many of the metropolitan areas was the effect of roadway improvement projects on livability and sustainable development objectives. In Palm Beach County, for example, the question arose whether to improve the roadway system, or implement more alternative bicycle/pedestrian facilities. Some of the state's coastal communities desire traffic calming measures and support the maintenance of traditional neighborhood development, over road widening improvements. Many of these areas, however, experience tremendous congestion problems, due in part to their seasonal attraction as tourist destinations. In many of these communities, citizens expressed conflicting desires between methods of increasing capacity and limiting through-traffic.
The coastal communities of the Sarasota/Manatee County MPO described a high degree of congestion during peak seasonal periods, especially on the bridges that lead from the mainland to the coast. Bottlenecks and heavy congestion are common along these facilities. High growth rates make it difficult for the region to accommodate the high demands on the transportation network, even with the growth management strategies currently in place. Conflicting values expressed throughout public involvement sessions made reaching consensus more difficult. A strong desire to alleviate the congestion and gridlock throughout the residential communities was counterbalanced by an equally strong desire to retain high levels of automobile travel, in preference to more transit service.
In other areas, the livability issue arose as a result of limited areas available for new roadway construction. In Pinellas County, for example, a high level of development limits the extent to which existing roadways can be widened. This was an important issue during the LRTP process, as some of the more significant road improvements proposed by the MPO were opposed by citizens as too intrusive to the surrounding residential areas, and causing too negative an impact on the adjacent neighborhoods.
ISTEA dedicated $6 billion nationally over six years to the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) program. This was established to fund projects that enhanced air quality in ozone and carbon monoxide nonattainment areas. MPOs that had not attained the standards within the Clean Air Act were able to use CMAQ money for projects that would help to control or reduce these emissions. Conversely, metropolitan areas were prohibited from utilizing any federal funding for projects that exacerbated existing air quality problems.
The Act's mandate for compliance with the Clean Air Act has encouraged communities to elevate projects that help improve environmental quality. Many of the strategies employed are transportation demand management (TDM) measures. These techniques, which include such things as flexible work hours, telecommuting, vanpools, and high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, help to manage travel demand, which, in turn, helps reduce polluting emissions. The inclusion of these strategies was found to be common to most of Florida's urbanized areas. In fact, nearly all of the MPOs developed goals and objectives that strive to reduce dependency on the single occupant vehicle, thereby improving air quality. The majority of the MPO plans included goals to maximize travel choices, sustain the quality of the environment, and reduce energy consumption.
Some of the metropolitan areas, however, faced challenges in meeting air quality standards and not exceeding allowable levels of emissions. Air quality conformity was a major issue in the Jacksonville Urbanized Area during the development of its 2015 Long-range Plan. Duval County has been designated as an air quality maintenance area. To better manage congestion and subsequent air quality problems, the urbanized area has incorporated strategies in its plan to reduce single-occupancy travel and prioritize projects that encourage HOV travel. While the region was able to reach attainment status, there is some question as to whether such status can be maintained through the 2020 plan period. The Environmental Protection Agency has adopted new national air quality standards for particulate matter and ground level ozone, which some fear, may make compliance more difficult for many metropolitan areas.
Based on reviews of Florida's 25 MPO Long-Range Transportation Plans, a number of suggestions were made to improve the next generation of long-range transportation plans:
Incorporate current issues and problems into the long-range plans. Many of the critical issues that emerged during the development of the long-range plans were only revealed during telephone discussions with MPO staff members. The plan documents are largely sanitized and indicate few of the problems and issues facing the area. If plans are to be meaningful documents designed to guide future policy direction, they must incorporate the current and pressing issues facing each metropolitan region, policy directions established to address those issues, and tradeoffs between conflicting objectives.
Incorporate a strong visioning process. The transportation planning process should begin by articulating a strategic vision. This would best be accomplished as part of a comprehensive strategic planning process. We must be able to articulate a vision of what we want the community to be when it grows up. The vision needs to be articulated in terms that reflect the desired characteristics of the system at some time in the future. Of course, the vision need not be a dramatic departure from the past. If a community is content with its current character, the vision might be just more of the same. On the other hand, the vision might call for sweeping changes to the character of the area. In either case, the vision must be reasonably (but not necessarily easily) attainable. Because of the critical interaction of transportation and land use, the vision will need to incorporate land use, community development, protection of natural resources, and transportation.
Incorporate principles of strategic planning into the long-range transportation planning process. The current transportation planning process is very deterministic. Most often, a single set of forecast input data is used to develop measures of future transportation conditions. The fact is that transportation models are quite imprecise and forecasting the input variables is highly uncertain. A strategic planning process that explicitly recognizes risks and uncertainties would better allow us to respond to future conditions.
Recognize the interaction between transportation and land use, with alternative land use scenarios. Almost all of the MPO plans test alternative transportation networks against a fixed future land use forecast. This approach ignores the important influence that transportation has on future land use. MPOs should consider the approach taken in the Tallahassee/Leon County plan of testing distinctly different future land use scenarios. This effort could also serve as a vital tool in defining and adjusting the local government comprehensive plans.
Place greater emphasis on difficult policy tradeoffs and less reliance on transportation planning models. Transportation planning models can be useful tools to assist in evaluating policy alternatives. However, our review indicates that the planning process seems to be driven by transportation planning models used to forecast roadway deficiencies. The result has been that in many plans, the majority of the time is spent on model validation, with comparatively little time spent addressing substantive policy tradeoffs.
Include standard reporting of certain performance measures. Inclusion of quantitative data, such as total number of lane miles at various levels-of-service or average network speeds, would be beneficial in relating future system performance to current conditions. While some of this data is an output of the FSUTMS, and is likely considered by most MPOs, the information is not readily available in the plan documents. Including this information in plan summary documents would make future performance levels clear to decision-makers and general citizens.
Include a systematic assessment of safety considerations in plan development. Many of the long-range plans did not address specific safety considerations in their overall needs assessments, although some did consider safety as a project selection criteria. It is recommended that a systematic consideration of high accident locations, for vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists, be taken into account when developing a schedule of needed improvements to the overall transportation network.
Include systematic consideration of hurricane evacuation in the development of long-range plans. The ability of the transportation network to handle evacuations of forecasted future populations should be included in long-range plans. With the vulnerability of the entire Florida peninsula, the impact of future plans on evacuation clearance times should be incorporated into the process.
Standardize the timing of plan updates throughout the metropolitan regions. Efforts to standardize all 25 long-range plans to the same horizon year should be pursued. A common horizon year would enable the development of a more accurate cumulative financial shortfall analysis, inclusive of all estimated improvement costs and all projected available revenues. It would then be unnecessary to adjust the cost and revenue totals of some of the plans, in order to approximate future years of needed improvement costs and revenues, as is currently necessary to project a statewide shortfall.
Standardize the reporting of estimated costs and projected revenues. A consistent reporting format for estimated project costs and projected revenues would facilitate subsequent cumulative financial shortfall analyses. Uniform cost and funding categories would allow for more accurate comparisons of disaggregated financial data for various transportation improvement categories.
Report financial information by responsible agency and facility type. Currently, only a handful of the MPO plans identify the agency (e.g., state/federal government, county government, city government, transit agency) responsible for funding each of the needed improvements included in the plan. Most plans do not report this information in a manner that allows for a readily available assessment of financial shortfalls for particular agencies. The inclusion of a breakdown of jurisdictional responsibility for implementation of identified improvements would allow for a detailed evaluation of the financial shortfall for various components of the transportation system, such as the FIHS, the SHS, county and city arterials, collectors, local roads, and transit. It would also make it possible to separate state and local financial shortfalls.
This review of the long-range transportation plans of Florida's 25 Metropolitan Planning Organizations was conducted to gain an understanding of the prevailing issues facing the different urbanized areas in the state. Virtually all of the metropolitan regions are facing funding shortfalls, and most struggle with devising innovative financing strategies. Several regions face environmental and air quality concerns; others strive to maintain a sufficient mobility/livability balance. Based on the issues and problems identified by the individual MPOs, and based on the extent to which the regional plans coincide with the state's transportation direction, CUTR identified a number of considerations for the MPOs to address in their future plan updates. Among them are the recommendations that principles of strategic planning be applied, and a strong visioning process developed, to help articulate a clear vision for the future of the urbanized areas.
Margaret A. Marshall, Research Associate
Edward A. Mierzejewski, Ph.D., P.E., Deputy Director of Engineering
Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR)
Tampa, FL