What is an MPO?
Metropolitan Planning Organizations are part of a federal process to conduct local transportation planning in urbanized areas. The federal government requires urbanized areas to establish a planning process that is Comprehensive, Continuing, and Cooperative (the three C’s of transportation planning). The MPO process is required in urbanized areas over 50,000 in population in order to receive federal funding for transportation. The MPO process is a partnership between local and state government to make decisions about transportation planning in urbanized areas and to meet planning requirements established by federal authorizing legislation for transportation funding.