Section 5303, Metropolitan Transportation Planning Program

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) is appropriating $1,872,430 to ADOT in FY2009 to fund and to provide financial assistance to states and local public bodies to support various types of planning. In order to qualify for metropolitan planning funding an agency must meet Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) eligibility.

There are currently five MPO’s in the state of Arizona which include the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG), the Pima Association of Governments (PAG), Yuma Metropolitan Planning Organization (YMPO), Flagstaff Metropolitan Planning Organization (FMPO) and Central Yavapai Metropolitan Planning Organization (CYMPO) that receive metropolitan planning funding.

FTA apportions 80 percent of the Metropolitan Planning Program assistance to the states based on an urbanized area population formula established by statute. The state then allocates its funding assistance to the MPOs based on a FTA-approved formula developed by the state in cooperation with MPOs that considers population and provides an appropriate distribution. The MPOs as a matching prorata must provide the remaining 20 percent.

Specifically, the Metropolitan Planning Program (MPP) provides financial assistance, through the states, to MPOs to support the costs of preparing long-range transportation plans and financially feasible transit improvement projects. MPP assistance should be used to conduct balanced and comprehensive intermodal transportation planning and technical studies for the movement of people and goods in the metropolitan area.

The Section 5303 program manager is Ms.Teri Kennedy.