About Amarillo MPO

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INTRODUCTION

The City of Amarillo was designated as the Amarillo Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) in February 1973. The original decision-making body of the MPO was called the Amarillo Policy Committee, composed of state, county, and city officials, and charged with the task of being “cooperatively responsible for the performance of the planning process including transportation systems plans developed as a part of the planning process; ensure proper coordination of transportation modes and between sub-areas; cooperatively establish transportation needs; and propose projects from all transportation modes for recommendation to those governmental units responsible for program development and project implementation.”

[State Department of Highways and Public Transportation Minute Order No. 76787, dated 20 February 1980]

Organization

The MPO Policy Committee includes eleven voting and seven ex-officio members.

The voting members of the Policy Committee consist of three City of Amarillo members: Mayor, Council Member, and City Manager; two Texas Department of Transportation Amarillo District members: District Engineer and Director of Transportation Planning & Development; two representatives each of Potter and Randall Counties: County Judge and County Commissioner; two citizen representatives from the Amarillo Chamber of Commerce and the Panhandle Regional Planning Commission.

Ex-officio members include representatives of the City of Canyon, Panhandle Regional Planning Commission, 13^th Congressional District of Texas, 31^st Texas State Senatorial District, 86^th Texas State Representative District, and 87^th Texas State Representative District.

Non-voting and staff members include: FHWA Texas Division, FTA Region VI, TxDOT Transportation Planning & Programming Division, TxDOT Amarillo Planning staff, and MPO staff.

Definition Of Area

The Amarillo MPO’s Metropolitan Area Boundary (MAB), which is area within the MPO’s geographic planning jurisdiction, includes that geographical area, known as the study area. The MPO Urban Area Boundary (UAB) was roughly concurrent with the city limits of Amarillo until the boundary was expanded in 2019 to include the City of Canyon, Bushland, Lake Tanglewood, Timber Creek Canyon, Palisades, and Bishop Hills.

StudyMap

What is the MPO?

Every metropolitan area with a population of more than 50,000 persons must have a designated Metropolitan Planning Organization for transportation to qualify for federal highway or transit assistance.

It is important to note that the MPO membership is made up of local officials of the city and counties within the urbanized area. Other officials include the District Engineer of the Texas Department of Transportation.

The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) relies on the MPO to ensure that highway and transit projects that use federal funds are products of a credible planning process and meet local priorities. USDOT will not approve federal funding for urban highway and transit projects unless they are on the MPO’s program. Thus, the MPO’s role is to develop and maintain the necessary transportation plans for the area to assure that federal funds support these locally developed plans. Federal Transportation Acts have greatly strengthened the responsibility by placing the MPO in a primary role for the programming of transportation projects to be carried out in any given year. These Federal Acts include ISTEA in 1991, TEA-21 in 1998, SAFETEA-LU in 2005, MAP-21 which was replaced by FAST Act of 2015 (Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act). The MPO strives diligently to involve the public and stakeholders in the planning process through expanded citizen participation efforts.

The MPO works closely with Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) to develop new models to simulate traffic flow, congestion, accident pattern, and anticipate future conditions to make suggestions to the Policy Board for adoption. Equally important, a realistic assessment of financial resources has been made so that the resulting plan reflects the capacity of the area to carry it out. Citizen involvement is imperative in this process.

What Does the MPO Do?

The MPO carries out three major work activities to meet specific federal requirements and to maintain eligibility for transportation funds. While the MTP looks some twenty-five years into the future, the MPO also develops a biennial TIP that identifies those projects that will be carried out in the next four years. This process involves solicitation of projects’ requests from those agencies responsible for providing transportation services and facilities, cooperatively ranking them into their merits, and selecting those highest priority projects that will fit into the estimated available funding.

Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP)

The MTP is the Long-Range Transportation Plan for the City of Amarillo and surrounding Potter and Randall Counties. The Plan, which covers a twenty-year planning horizon, addresses the following:

1) an inventory of the transportation systems

2) a forecast of travel demand on the future transportation network

3) a strategy for alternative modes of transportation other than single occupant vehicles

4) an analysis of environmental factors including air quality.

Federal requirements call for an update of the MTP every five years. The current 2020-45 MTP was formally approved by the MPO on October 21, 2019. The plan summarizes the existing transportation systems within the Amarillo Transportation Study Area and provides an implementation schedule for transportation related projects. The implementation schedule provides a description of the improvements and estimated costs. The 2020-45 MTP lists over $1 billion in proposed transportation improvements.

Transportation Improvement Program (TIP)

The TIP is a short-range (four year) list of proposed transportation improvement projects for the Metropolitan area. The TIP is updated every two years. The TIP must include all transportation projects within the metropolitan planning area. Only projects that are consistent with the MTP may be included in the TIP. That is any project placed in the TIP must come from the MTP. Thus, the TIP is actually a subset of the MTP. The TIP must also be financially constrained by year and include a financial plan that demonstrates which projects can be implemented using current revenue sources or projected revenues.

Unified Planning Work Program (UPWP)

The Unified Planning Work Program (UPWP) describes the annual activities that will be undertaken by the MPO, the relative allocation of resources that will pay for each activity, and to maintain consistency from year to year in addressing transportation systems issues within the MPO’s planning jurisdiction. In the Amarillo Urban Transportation Study Area, the UPWP is a one-year work plan. It describes the type of work being performed by the MPO for one Fiscal Year (October 1 thru September 31), the agencies that will be responsible for the work, and the funding sources for each particular task.

The UPWP is similar to the TIP in that an annual solicitation of ideas is requested that are then ranked and fit into an estimated budget. The difference is that instead of specific transportation projects, the program consists of planning studies that are necessary to carry out the program. While most of the programs are carried out by the MPO’s own staff, a portion is assigned to other participating agencies in accordance with their own skills and responsibilities. The UPWP is adopted in July for each new federal fiscal year (October 1 to September 30), while the TIP is adopted in April.

Value of the MPO

The value of having the MPO involved in functions that go beyond transportation planning has long been recognized. As a regional organization, the MPO has produces current and forecasted demographic and employment data for the entire two-county area. With the assistance from participating agencies, the MPO has tools, including GIS mapping, planning documents, and COMPAT data. These data are useful for other public and private entities for planning and forecasting their operations. The City of Amarillo provides the Public Transportation Programs in the urban area.

How is the MPO Organized?

There are two aspects of the MPO organization. First, is the formal structure of the MPO as committees and second, is the arrangement between its staff and staff of the participating agencies.

The Policy Committee (PC) typically meets quarterly on the third Thursday of January, April, July, and October, unless canceled for lack of agenda. Meetings normally begin at 1:30 p.m. and are held in Conference Room 275 on the second floor of Amarillo Simms Municipal Building, 808 S. Buchanan Street, Amarillo, Texas. At these meetings current transportation issues are discussed and status reports on transportation studies and projects are given. After these discussions are completed, policy actions are taken that include adoption of the TIP and UPWP, revision to these documents or the Metropolitan Transportation Plan, and adoption of resolutions related to current transportation issues.

The PC delegates technical review of the MPO’s work to the Technical Committee, a working group composed of professional staff members of the MPO’s organizations. The committee members review and approve technical and planning reports and brief PC members as required.

Continuing technical support to the transportation planning program is provided by the MPO Staff and ad hoc committees composed of professional staff members of the MPO’s organizations. It is at this level that the technical studies are reviewed in detail so that a relatively finished product is passed to the Policy Committee.

The MPO Staff is made up of professionals in planning and mobility. The Staff conducts studies and oversees projects as directed by PC. The Staff reports findings to the MPO Committees and participates in other community wide efforts. The combined work of the MPO Staff and the participating staff of other member organizations provides the information needed to make program and policy decisions.

During the course of its work, MPO Staff identifies transportation needs in the community. Normally these needs are addressed by member organizations. Staff works with other public, private, and academic organizations in the metropolitan area.

The most important partner in the process is the general public. Considerable time is devoted to ensuring that the public is informed of the MPO’s programs and activities, and that transportation stakeholders and interested citizens have an opportunity to participate in them. The MPO has a significant commitment to include all citizens in the transportation planning process through its Public Participation Plan.

Issues and Activities

The MPO is particularly interested in issues involving long range transportation planning, development of intermodal connections, reducing reliance on automobile, and land use options to reduce trips. Current activities of the MPO include:

Collecting and maintaining comprehensive data. The data includes demographic and employment information, travel time and delays, traffic counts and congestion, and land use information. The MPO utilizes Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and other tools to enhance the analysis.

Working with various interest groups to deal with the full range of transportation issues.

Working to enhance the accessibility and circulation in the city through cooperative efforts with the City of Amarillo, Texas Department of Transportation and others.

Carrying out the recommendations of the Metropolitan Transportation Plan.

Maintaining working relationships with the regional planning organizations to integrate land use planning and development of the region with transportation planning and development.

Developing intermodal planning activities.

Funding Highway, Transit, and Other Projects

Construction Funds Nearly all major transportation projects in the MPO region involve some federal funding. SAFETEA-LU has placed the MPO in major partnership position with the transportation providers to determine how the federal funds should be allocated to the many competing projects. These federal funds are provided to the region under several program categories. In the highway area, funds are identified as Interstate, National Highway System (NHS), Surface Transportation Program (STP), and Bridge Replacement and Rehabilitation. Transit funds are provided through various sections of transit programs for operating and capital expenses for urban and rural needs.

TxDOT and the MPO has considerable flexibility in making final determination of the projects to be funded and the source of funding. Though some funds are specifically restricted for one particular type of project or another, a large portion of them may be transferred from one program to another, including the transfer of funds from highway to transit projects and vice-versa. This provides the TxDOT with significant latitude in shaping the programs to meet local priorities. In addition to the federal programs, the State of Texas provides the required matching funds for federal highway projects. Many projects are funded completely by the State of Texas.

Most transportation projects on city and county roads are financed through local funds. The Capital Improvement Projects (CIPs) of the cities and counties provide this information.

What is Expected of Me?

Whether you are a member of the MPO or a private citizen you have a role to play with the MPO. The Policy Committee (PC) makes difficult decisions in a cooperative manner. However, the PC ‘s responsibilities do not begin and end with making decisions. PC members are ultimately responsible to the residents of the region for the quality of transportation services and for the impact of transportation on their overall quality of life. This means the PC members share the responsibility for making sure that major transportation issues of today and tomorrow are dealt with fairly and properly. The citizens are encouraged to participate in the transportation planning process during quarterly Policy Committee meetings, development of the MTP and development of the TIP.

What Other Information is Available?

If you would like to learn more about the issues the MPO deals with and the services, it provides you may wish to visit the MPO office. The MPO staff is also available to make presentations or to speak to organizations or group of citizens on any subject of mutual interest.

Where are the MPO Offices Located?