23 U.S.C. § 134 — Metropolitan transportation planning

(a) Policy. Congress finds it in the national interest to: (1) encourage safe, efficient transportation systems that meet people's and freight's mobility needs, grow the economy, connect housing and jobs, plan for resilience, and cut fuel use and air pollution, through metropolitan and statewide planning; and (2) keep improving how metropolitan planning organizations, state transportation departments, and public transit operators do this planning, guided by the factors in subsection (h) and section 135(d). (b) Definitions. (1) "Metropolitan planning area" means the area a metropolitan planning organization and the governor agree on under subsection (e). (2) "Metropolitan planning organization" (MPO) means the policy board of the organization designated under subsection (d). (3) "Nonmetropolitan area" means any area outside a designated metropolitan planning area. (4) "Nonmetropolitan local official" means elected or appointed local officials in a nonmetropolitan area who are responsible for transportation. (5) "Regional transportation planning organization" means a policy board designated under section 135(m). (6) "TIP" means the transportation improvement program an MPO develops under subsection (j). (7) "Urbanized area" means an area the Census Bureau says has 50,000 people or more. (c) General Requirements. (1) MPOs, working with the state and public transportation operators, must build long-range transportation plans and TIPs using a performance-driven, outcome-based approach. (2) These plans and TIPs must provide for developing and managing an integrated transportation system — including accessible walkways, bike facilities, and intercity connections — that works for the metropolitan area and fits into state and national systems. (3) The planning process must consider every mode of transportation and be continuing, cooperative, and as thorough as the area's transportation problems require. (d) Designating MPOs. (1) Every urbanized area with more than 50,000 people must have a designated MPO, set up either by agreement between the governor and local governments representing at least 75% of the affected population (including the largest city), or under applicable state or local law. (2) Within two years of MAP-21 becoming law, an MPO serving a transportation management area (defined in subsection (k)) must include local elected officials, officials from agencies that run major transportation modes (including public transit providers), and appropriate state officials. (3) Members are chosen under the MPO's own bylaws; a public-transit representative may also represent a local municipality with the same voting rights and authority as other members; and when choosing members for the first time, the MPO must consider fair, proportional representation of the planning area's population. (4) This does not override state law in effect on December 18, 1991 that lets a multimodal public agency develop plans and TIPs for the MPO to adopt, and handle long-range capital planning and transit coordination. (5) An MPO's designation stays in effect until it is redesignated. (6) An MPO may be redesignated the same way it was designated — 75% population agreement — or simply restructured to meet the membership rules in paragraph (2) without a full redesignation. (7) Normally one MPO covers an urbanized area, but more than one may be designated if the governor and the existing MPO agree the area is large or complex enough to need it. (e) Metropolitan Planning Area Boundaries. (1) Boundaries are set by agreement between the MPO and the governor. (2) Each planning area must at least cover the existing urbanized area plus the area expected to become urbanized within a 20-year forecast, and may cover the entire metropolitan statistical area. (3) If the Census Bureau identifies new urbanized areas inside an existing planning area, that alone does not force a redesignation. (4) For areas already in "nonattainment" for ozone or carbon monoxide under the Clean Air Act as of SAFETEA-LU's enactment, the existing boundaries stay in place, unless the governor and affected MPOs agree to adjust them the same way as a redesignation. (5) For areas newly designated nonattainment after SAFETEA-LU, new boundaries must be set the normal way, must cover the required urbanized area, may cover the wider statistical area, and may address the nonattainment area. (f) Coordination in Multistate Areas. (1) The Secretary encourages governors and MPOs sharing a multistate metropolitan area to plan together. (2) Congress consents to states entering interstate compacts for cooperative transportation planning, and to setting up joint agencies to carry them out. (3) States keep the right to alter, amend, or repeal these compacts. (g) MPO Consultation in Plan and TIP Coordination. (1) If more than one MPO covers an urbanized area, or an area is in ozone or carbon-monoxide nonattainment, the MPOs must consult each other and the state when coordinating plans and TIPs. (2) If a transportation improvement funded by the Highway Trust Fund or transit law spans more than one metropolitan planning area, the MPOs involved must coordinate their plans and TIPs on it. (3) The Secretary encourages MPOs to consult with other planning officials — on land use, economic development, housing, tourism, disaster risk, environmental protection, airports, and freight — or coordinate with those plans; the resulting plans and TIPs must be developed with due consideration of that other planning, and the process must support service delivery by transit-assistance recipients, agencies getting non-DOT federal funds for nonemergency transportation, and recipients under section 204. (4) If more than one MPO covers a single urbanized area, they must keep planning data — including travel-demand forecasts — consistent to the maximum extent practicable. (5) Nothing here requires multiple MPOs within one urbanized area to jointly write a single combined plan or TIP. (h) Scope of Planning Process. (1) The planning process must consider projects and strategies that: (A) support economic strength and global competitiveness; (B) increase safety for all users; (C) increase security for all users; (D) increase access and mobility for people and freight; (E) protect the environment, promote energy conservation, improve quality of life, and keep transportation consistent with local growth, housing, and economic development plans; (F) better connect different transportation modes; (G) promote efficient system management and operation; (H) preserve the existing transportation system; (I) improve resilience and reliability and reduce stormwater impacts; and (J) enhance travel and tourism. (2) Performance-based approach: planning must use performance measures tied to the national goals in section 150(b) and the purposes in section 5301 of title 49. Each MPO must set performance targets matching the measures in section 150(c), coordinated with the state, and must coordinate public-transportation targets with transit providers; MPOs must set their targets within 180 days after the relevant state or transit provider sets its own; and MPOs must fold the goals, measures, and targets from other performance-based state and transit plans into their own planning process. (3) A court may not review a failure to consider these factors, in any case about a transportation plan, TIP, project, strategy, or certification of the planning process. (i) Development of Transportation Plan. (1) Each MPO must prepare and update a transportation plan for its area. Areas designated nonattainment (or recently upgraded to attainment but under a maintenance plan) must update their plan at least every 4 years; other areas must update at least every 5 years; either type of area may update more often if it chooses. (2) The plan must include, at minimum: (A) identification of key transportation facilities — roads, transit, intercity bus, multimodal and intermodal facilities, nonmotorized facilities, and connectors — that should work as one integrated system, emphasizing facilities of national or regional importance, considering the subsection (h) factors over a 20-year forecast; (B) a description of the performance measures and targets used; (C) a system performance report tracking progress against those targets, plus — for MPOs that voluntarily use multiple scenarios — analysis of how the chosen scenario improved conditions and what it costs; (D) a discussion of possible environmental mitigation activities and where to carry them out, developed together with wildlife, land-management, and regulatory agencies; (E) a financial plan showing how the plan can be paid for, what public and private funding is reasonably expected, and any additional financing strategies needed — it may also list, for illustration, extra projects that could be added if more money were available, developed cooperatively with the transit operator and the state; (F) operational and management strategies to relieve congestion and improve safety and mobility; (G) capital investment and other strategies to preserve infrastructure, add multimodal capacity based on regional needs, and reduce vulnerability to natural disasters; and (H) proposed transportation and transit enhancements, including strategies for intercity bus service. (3) In ozone or carbon-monoxide nonattainment areas, the MPO must coordinate the plan with the state's Clean Air Act implementation process. (4) MPOs may voluntarily build multiple planning scenarios, considering: potential investment strategies; assumed population and employment distribution; assumed population and housing distribution; a scenario that keeps baseline performance-measure conditions; a scenario that improves as many performance measures as possible; revenue-constrained scenarios based on expected total revenue; and estimated costs and revenues for each scenario — and may evaluate them using locally developed measures too. (5) MPOs must consult, as appropriate, with state and local agencies responsible for land use, natural resources, environmental protection, conservation, and historic preservation, comparing transportation plans against conservation plans or maps and against natural or historic resource inventories where available. (6) MPOs must give the public — and many named interested groups, including transit employees, ports, freight shippers, private transportation providers, transit users, pedestrian and bicycle users, people with disabilities, and affordable-housing organizations — a real, reasonable chance to comment, through a participation plan developed with all interested parties; methods must include, to the maximum extent practicable, convenient public meetings, visualization techniques, and making information available electronically; MPOs may also use social media to encourage participation and gather feedback. (7) A federally involved plan must be published or otherwise made readily available for public review — electronically where practical — and submitted to the governor for information, on whatever schedule the Secretary sets. (8) A state or MPO is never required to select a project from the plan's illustrative list of additional projects. (j) Metropolitan TIP. (1) The MPO, together with the state and any affected transit operator, must develop a TIP that: contains projects consistent with the current plan; reflects the plan's investment priorities; and, once carried out, is designed to make progress toward the plan's performance targets. The TIP process must give interested parties a chance to comment the same way as under subsection (i)(5); funding estimates must be developed cooperatively; and the TIP must be updated at least every 4 years and approved by both the MPO and the governor. (2) The TIP must include: a priority list of proposed federally supported projects and strategies for each 4-year period after initial adoption; a financial plan showing how the TIP can be implemented, what public and private resources are reasonably expected, innovative financing techniques, and — for illustration — additional projects if more resources were available; enough descriptive detail on each project to identify it or its phase; and, as much as practical, a description of how the TIP is expected to advance the plan's performance targets, linking investment priorities to those targets. (3) A TIP must include projects proposed for funding under this title's chapter 1 and under chapter 53 of title 49; "regionally significant" projects proposed for funding under chapter 2 must be listed individually, while other chapter 2 projects may be grouped into one line item; every project must be consistent with the long-range plan; and a project or project phase may be included only if full funding can reasonably be expected within the time planned for completing it. (4) Before approving a TIP, the MPO must give interested parties a chance to comment, the same way as under subsection (i)(5). (5) Except as subsection (k)(4) provides otherwise, federally funded projects in metropolitan areas are selected from the approved TIP — highway projects by the state, transit projects by the designated recipients of transit funding — always in cooperation with the MPO; and the Secretary's approval is not required just to move one approved project ahead of another. (6) A state or MPO is never required to pick a project from the plan's illustrative project list, but Secretary approval is required before actually adding one of those illustrative projects into an approved TIP. (7) A TIP with federal involvement must be published or made readily available for public review; and the state, transit operator, and MPO must jointly publish, at least once a year, a list of projects — including pedestrian and bicycle investments — that received federal funds during the preceding year, consistent with the TIP's categories. (k) Transportation Management Areas. (1) The Secretary must identify every urbanized area with more than 200,000 people as a transportation management area, and must designate additional areas as such at the request of the governor and the relevant MPO. (2) In a transportation management area, plans must come from a continuing, comprehensive planning process run by the MPO, working with the state and public transportation operators. (3) The planning process must address congestion management through a cooperative, region-wide strategy covering new and existing eligible facilities, using travel-demand reduction tools — such as intercity bus, carpool, vanpool, transit-benefit, parking cash-out, shuttle, and telework programs — job-access projects, and operational strategies; the Secretary sets a phase-in schedule that cannot start sooner than a year after the area is identified; and an MPO may develop a congestion management plan that sets regional goals to cut peak-hour driving and better connect high-job areas with low-income areas, identifies existing services that support job access, and proposes projects and programs to reduce congestion and increase job access — developed by consulting employers, public and nonprofit transit providers, transportation management organizations, and job-access service organizations. (4) An MPO in a transportation management area may also, optionally, address integrating housing, transportation, and economic development, consulting relevant state and local land-use, housing, and transportation agencies and coordinating with local affordable-housing strategies; it may develop a housing coordination plan setting regional goals — better connecting housing and jobs, aligning transportation improvements with housing needs and supply, addressing needs relative to household income, expanding housing and economic development near existing transit, managing vehicle-mile growth linked to housing and economic growth, and increasing affordable access to the transportation network — plus identifying housing and employment locations and comparing transportation plans with local land-use and zoning plans. (5) In a transportation management area, all federally funded projects except National Highway System projects are selected from the approved TIP by the MPO, working with the state and any affected transit operator; National Highway System projects are instead selected by the state, working with the MPO. (6) The Secretary must ensure a transportation management area's planning process follows federal law, and must certify — at least once every 4 years — that the process meets the law's requirements and that there is a TIP approved by both the MPO and the governor. If the process is not certified, the Secretary may withhold up to 20% of the area's project funds until it is certified, after which the withheld funds are restored; the Secretary must involve the public appropriately when reviewing certification. (l) Report on Performance-Based Planning Processes. The Secretary must report to Congress, no later than 5 years after MAP-21 became law, evaluating: how effective performance-based planning is overall as a tool for guiding transportation investment; how effective each MPO's own performance-based process is; how much progress MPOs have made toward their performance targets, and whether those targets are meaningful; and the technical capacity of smaller MPOs — those serving areas of 200,000 people or fewer — to carry out these requirements. This report must be published, including online. (m) Abbreviated Plans for Certain Areas. For a metropolitan area that is not a transportation management area, the Secretary may allow a shorter, simpler transportation plan and TIP, matching the actual complexity of the area's transportation problems. This simplified option is never allowed for an area in ozone or carbon-monoxide nonattainment. (n) Additional Requirements for Certain Nonattainment Areas. In a transportation management area that is in ozone or carbon-monoxide nonattainment, federal money cannot go to a highway project that would significantly increase capacity for single-occupant vehicles unless the project goes through the congestion management process. This rule applies to any nonattainment area within the planning-area boundaries set under subsection (e). (o) Limitation on Statutory Construction. Nothing in this section gives an MPO legal authority over any transportation facility, provider, or project that is not otherwise eligible under this title or chapter 53 of title 49. (p) Funding. Funds set aside under section 104(b)(6) of this title, or under section 5305(g) of title 49, pay for carrying out this section. (q) Continuation of Current Review Practice. Because plans and TIPs already get a reasonable opportunity for public comment, individual projects already get environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, and Secretary decisions on plans and TIPs had not been reviewed under that Act as of January 1, 1997, this section says such Secretary decisions are not treated as a "Federal action" subject to review under that Act. (r) Bi-State Metropolitan Planning Organization. (1) "Bi-State MPO Region" has the meaning given to "region" in the Lake Tahoe Regional Planning Compact. (2) For purposes of this title, that region is treated as a metropolitan planning organization, a transportation management area, and an urbanized area made up of 145,000 people in California and 65,000 people in Nevada. (3) When figuring the population-based funding amounts under section 133(d)(1) for California and Nevada, the Secretary must calculate the population under each population clause, then subtract the Bi-State Region's population from the smallest-area category and add it to the largest-urbanized-area category, for each state; the same method applies when figuring the STP set-aside amounts under section 133(h)(2).