The quality of life in urban areas is and will continue to be significantly affected by decisions on the use of federal transportation funds. Key urban issues, such as traffic congestion, air pollution, and the economic viability of neighborhoods and commercial areas, are significantly affected by the decisions on how these funds are spent. The decisions, in turn, grow out of the urban transportation planning process and the role of the nation’s 339 metropolitan planning organizations (MPO). Since the early 1970s, MPOs have been significant players in urban transportation planning. An MPO is not a discrete decision-making body with real jurisdictional powers, such as a city or county government. Instead, an MPO is best viewed as a consortium of governments and other bodies—such as transit agencies and citizens groups—that join together for cooperative transportation planning. An MPO’s organization and membership often consists of (1) a policy-making board involving elected officials from the local governments in the metropolitan area; (2) a technical committee consisting of professional staff of local, state, and federal transportation agencies; and (3) an MPO staff. The MPO’s primary mission is to develop a consensus on a long-term transportation plan for an urban area and to develop a transportation improvement program (TIP) that identifies projects to implement the plan. How each of the 339 MPOs in the United States fulfills this mission depends on its relationship with the state department of transportation and other transportation operators, the number of local governments in the region, the size and experience of the MPO staff, the growth rate of the population, and the number of transportation modes in the region. According to a 1995 report on MPOs by the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR), some MPO-like organizations existed in the 1950s to prepare special metropolitan planning studies in Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Philadelphia. In 1970, federal policy fostered the development of comprehensive urban transportation planning by requiring the creation of planning agencies in areas with populations of 50,000 or greater to carry out cooperative planning at the metropolitan level. Originally, all MPOs were treated alike under federal laws and regulations. In the mid-1980s, when funding for metropolitan planning was reduced, preference for funding was given to those MPOs in metropolitan areas over 200,000 in population, areas now known as Transportation Management Areas (TMA). ISTEA’s funding provisions also provided additional discretion and funding to those MPOs located in areas violating the federal air quality standards. ISTEA established the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program (CMAQ) and authorized $6 billion over 6 years to help the areas not in attainment with the air quality standards (nonattainment areas) reach compliance with the Clean Air Act’s (CAA) requirements. With CMAQ funds, the MPOs located in the areas that are not in compliance with the federal standards for ozone or carbon monoxide emissions can approve projects that help control or reduce these emissions. The population and geographic area covered by the MPOs also determine the breadth of their responsibilities and the support they have to meet their ISTEA planning requirements. Some MPOs, such as those in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, plan for urbanized populations of over 6 million. Typically, these MPOs are well financed and have a dedicated professional staff of 100 or more. At the other extreme, the MPOs that plan for urban areas with populations just over 50,000 may have no staff or a single county government employee working part time for the MPO. In addition, the MPOs’ planning duties can be complicated by the boundaries of jurisdictions in metropolitan areas. As growth occurs, urbanized areas sometimes overrun the MPOs’ boundaries or become so large that state and local officials establish more than one MPO to serve the area. Currently, 14 contiguous urbanized areas within a single state have two or more MPOs. In these locations, such as Florida’s Tampa Bay area, cooperation and coordination among the MPOs are essential. Other urban areas cross state lines. For example, the Philadelphia MPO plans for the Pennsylvania and New Jersey portions of the Philadelphia urban area, and the St. Louis MPO plans for the Missouri and Illinois portions of the urban area. The task of these MPOs is complicated by their having to deal with two or more state governments and more than one Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) or Federal Transit Administration (FTA) region. The ACIR report noted that ISTEA brought three new, far-reaching philosophies to the administration of the federal surface transportation programs: (1) the decentralization of decision-making to the state and local governments, and particularly to the MPOs in the larger metropolitan areas with populations of 200,000 or more; (2) stronger environmental connections, especially to the CAA; and (3) the elevation of nontraditional goals and stakeholders to new prominence in the planning and decision-making processes. ACIR noted that the decentralization of decisions gave many MPOs a larger area to plan for, more miles of road to make decisions about, more flexibility to consider alternatives to the automobile, a lead role in allocating certain federal transportation funds, a longer horizon to consider for the planning process, and a responsibility to consider many transportation-related public policies. In 129 urban areas with populations greater than 200,000,—the TMAs—ISTEA gives the MPOs the authority to select projects from the TIP, in consultation with the state. In other areas, the selection of projects is to be carried out by the state in cooperation with the MPO. Environmental considerations have become more of a driving force in the MPOs’ work as well. The MPOs in nonattainment areas must develop transportation plans that ensure that the CAA’s requirements are met. In constraining the transportation plans to meet the CAA’s goals, the MPOs cannot, with limited exceptions, spend any federal funds on any highway projects that will exacerbate existing air quality problems or lead to new violations of federal air quality standards. The MPO-developed transportation plans must contribute to reducing motor vehicle emissions. The elevation of nontraditional goals and stakeholders in the MPO planning process is specified in the ISTEA section that requires the MPOs to consider 16 factors when developing their metropolitan plans. Some of the planning factors require planners to consider the effects of transportation policies on land-use development; the social, economic, energy, and environmental impacts of transportation decisions; provide for the efficient movement of freight; and ensure connections with international borders, ports, and airports and intermodal facilities. These planning factors address many of the ways that transportation relates to other values and the unintended impact of transportation and transportation facilities. ISTEA stated that these factors must be considered as part of the planning process. In addition, ISTEA and subsequent planning regulations emphasized an early and continuous effort to involve citizens that actively seeks input from direct stakeholders and other members of the public, including those traditionally underserved by the existing transportation systems. The public’s involvement is to be sought at various points in the planning process, including the development of the plan, the TIP, and individual projects. Taking into consideration all of the relevant requirements of ISTEA and the CAA, the MPOs must develop two basic planning documents—the transportation plan and the transportation improvement program. The first document—the transportation plan—is a long-term document that specifies a 20-year vision for a metropolitan area’s transportation system. The plan is to include short- and long-range strategies leading to the development of an integrated and efficient intermodal transportation system. The plan is to be revised and updated at least every 3 years in those areas not meeting the federal air quality standards and at least once every 5 years in other areas. An acceptable plan must be a realistic, implementable document describing how the transportation system will serve metropolitan development objectives, address congestion and air quality concerns, and address other issues. The TIP is a much more detailed document that specifies a list of priority projects to be implemented in each year covered. It must include all transportation projects that will receive federal transportation funding and be clearly based on the objectives laid out in the plan. The TIP covers a period of at least 3 years and must be updated every 2 years. After approval by the governor, the metropolitan TIP must be included in the state TIP, which is then subject to review and approval by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). ISTEA specifies that the plans and TIPs include a financial component that demonstrates how the plans will be funded and implemented. The TIP must be financially constrained each year and must include only those projects for which funding has been identified using current or reasonably available revenue sources. The state and the transit operators must provide information early in the process of developing the TIP about the amount of federal, state, and other funds likely to be available. This financial constraint requirement was a major change in federal policy. Before ISTEA, long-range plans and TIPs were often lengthy “wish lists” of projects proposed by local governments, transit operators, and others. Because such plans and programs bore no relation to the available financial resources, many projects were never implemented. Hence, the real implementation decisions took place outside of the formal planning process. Thus, under ISTEA the financial constraint requirement ensures that the implementation decisions come directly from a systematic planning process. Concerned about the abilities of the MPOs to meet the demands of ISTEA’s planning requirements, the Chairman and the Ranking Minority Member, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and the Chairman of that Committee’s Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure requested us to determine the challenges that the MPOs face in implementing ISTEA’s metropolitan planning requirements.