The Memphis Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) is one of those arcane groups that labor in the shadows of local government, but whose decisions fundamentally shape how our community grows.
That’s because its decisions have the power to fuel sprawl or determine if the urban core can compete with new commercial areas.
The Memphis MPO is Memphis in name only. Chaired by Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton, most of MPO members are from outside of the city limits, and in this role, they sign off on how tens of millions of dollars in federal transportation money are spent, and they set major road priorities for its work.
While the purpose of the federally-mandated MPOs is to serve as the planning vehicle for regional cooperation and coordination, a new study by the Metropolitan Policy Program of The Brookings Institution calls into question the basic fairness of MPOs, especially the one in Memphis.
“Decisions by MPOs have important ramifications for metropolitan growth patterns and, by implication, social and economic opportunity,” the report said. “Yet, the decisions are made by boards whose members are generally not elected to serve on the MPO. Further, MPOs are not required by law to have representational voting. The potential exists, therefore, for MPO decisions to be biased toward certain constituencies or locales at the expense of others.”
The report on 50 large MPOs in the U.S. concluded that Memphis has the third most unbalanced board. While the City of Memphis has 63 percent of the total population, it has only 16 percent of MPO members. Meanwhile, suburbs with 32 percent of the population control 79 percent of the vote.
In addition, Memphis was cited as one of the most racially unequal. Despite Memphis’ large African-American population, 84 percent of MPO’s members are white. “That MPO boards do not reflect the geographic or racial composition of the metropolitan populations they serve should be a cause for concern, especially given that MPOs were intended by the federal framers to be an essential conduit for implementing reforms and ensuring public accountability,” the report said.
There are ways that the Memphis MPO could be fairer and more representative. A free-standing organization devoted solely to transportation planning, all board members are appointed by various governments. It could follow the example of Portland, Oregon, which is the only free-standing MPO that has elections for its members.
Another option is weighted voting, which 16 of the 50 large MPOs use to make sure the central city has a number of votes in proportion to their share of the total population. That avoids the kinds of disparities that happen here, where the vote of the Memphis mayor can be cancelled out by the vote of the mayor of Olive Branch.
In light of these imbalances, it should be no surprise that MPO decisions are frequently skewed toward the suburbs. The makeup of the Memphis MPO powerfully demonstrates how this can happen:
• Governor of Tennessee, or his representative
• Governor of Mississippi, or his representative
• Commissioner, Tennessee Department of Transportation
• Executive Director, Mississippi Department of Transportation
• Mayor of Shelby County
• Mayors of Memphis, Germantown, Bartlett, Collierville, Millington, Lakeland and Arlington
• Mayor of Fayette County
• Mayor of every incorporated town in Fayette County
• President, DeSoto County Board of Supervisors
• Mayors of every incorporated town in DeSoto County
• Chair, Memphis Transit Authority
• Chair, Memphis and Shelby County Port Commission
• Chair, Memphis and Shelby County Airport Authority
In a recent list of the top 10 road priorities for the Memphis MPO, half of the projects were in the suburbs, and over the years, MPO funding has frequently contributed to eastward sprawl and responded to the call by developers in the “warehouse corridors” of southeast Shelby County for wider and wider roads.
Most sadly of all, because of suburban dominance on the local MPO, its attention to public transit is nonexistent. This means that not only does MATA not receive much-needed funding but MPO’s ability to push for better management and service is squandered.
Meanwhile, a recent proposal for light rail to Germantown and Collierville was bogged down when suburban interests voted for a study widely interpreted as an attempt to kill the project. After all, they represent commuters, not bus riders, and it shows in their voting.
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7 comments:
"Meanwhile, a recent proposal for light rail to Germantown and Collierville was bogged down when suburban interests voted for a study widely interpreted as an attempt to kill the project. After all, they represent commuters, not bus riders, and it shows in their voting."
Actually you have it backwards. They're trying to keep it alive.
The idea of running a light rail by sharing the ROW with Norfolk-Southern along Poplar (thru G-town and C-ville) dies when NS refused to share the ROW.
As a result, MATA bumped up the Downtown-Airport line to the top of the list. The only problem is that the Downtown-Airport line is huge boondoggle. If built, it will set back any hope of a line out to G-town and C-ville YEARS!
Smart City hits home. It can never be said that this staff avoids an issue--just because it may be politically incorrect to address it.
Larry: Insiders to the process say just the opposite about the intentions of Germantown and Collierville officials. Time will tell. And as usual, we can't say it any better or nearly as good as turnerarch. SC
Unless a new proposal for light rail out to G-town and C-ville has come up in the past few months, there is no viable plan for LRT to those two cities to kill!
MATA's initial plan for an east corridor (later changed the name to the southeast corridor), died when Norfolk-Southern refused to share the ROW. It may still be there on paper, but it is dead. MATA had (and still has) no clue how to work around that obstacle so it immediately shifted its focus to the Downtown-Airport line.
The proposed Downtown-Airport is in serious trouble ... so the only thing the new MPO study might kill is that proposal.
If the recall for Willie is successful, you can expect the Downtown-Airport line wither on the vine. A new administration isn't going to spend $100 million of Memphis' taxpayer dollars on a project that has a projected operating and maintenance deficit of $10 million/yr.
Even if Willie survives the recall and stays in office, it is still in serious trouble. He's going to have to lay off union workers to balance this year's budget ... So taking on another big budget project while workers are being laid office won't sit well the city council.
So back to my point, unless a new proposal has come up recently, there is no LRT to G-town and C-ville to kill. It could only serve to kill the Downtown-Airport boondoggle which does need to be killed and/or say that the SE corridor should be priority if one if built at all.
Martha:
We appreciate the lengthy response, and we were aware of the intricacies of the MPO. That said, I'm sure most citizens would find it interesting for such a low-profile agency to have such a major impact on the future of our city. But back to the core question: Why is the MPO unbalanced to urban interests? Why do the suburban interests have a disproportionate voice in these critical decisions? Wouldn't weighted voting be fairer? Why are African-Americans so poorly represented in the overall decision-making?
All of this information is helpful, but it doesn't seem to answer the fundamental questions that lie at the heart of this analysis by the Brookings Institution and which deserve to have broader understanding by our citizens.
Thanks again.
One more question: When will the MPO devote more energy to a first-class public transit system, rather than just building highways? And when you say that 65 percent of the projects are within Memphis, are you talking about projects in the suburbs, which returns us to our point about public transit. There was a time when MPO listed Germantown Road as a "Memphis project," when clearly, it was a suburban sprawl project from the get-go.
Regulations have required that these road projects evaluate context sensitive issues, environment, alternative transportation, etc., for some time, but the interests of the traffic planner and real estate developers have remained paramount. When context sensitive design is regular part of every MPO project, that will show that real progress is being made.
Finally, if you take all of the MPO funded projects of the past 5-7 years and total the costs, what percentage is within the urban core and what percentage is on the suburban ring and in the county's smaller towns?
I suppose every person must read it.
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