Empowered to set regional transportation priorities and allocate federal dollars for road and transit projects, the nation’s metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) wield tremendous power. But are all of them accountable? And particularly, is their membership stacked to favor suburban interests — thus darkening inner cities’ and inner-ring suburbs’ hopes of revival?
A new lawsuit, in Detroit, alleges that’s just the case– that the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments has consistently squeezed transit funding and built sprawl roads. One result: Metro Detroit, according to Myron Orfield’s research, has consumed land over the past three decades at 12 times the rate of population growth, while the national average for the 25 largest metro areas is 2.5 times.
The plaintiffs include MOSES – a scrappy reform coalition of 70 churches associated with the nationwide Gamaliel Foundation (for more background see Peirce column) — and TRU, a broad-based pro-transit group in Detroit. (For TRU’s position paper, click here.)
“SEMCOG is so heavily skewed and weighted toward sprawl, it doesn’t even pass the straight-face test,” Ferndale City Manager Tom Barwin, whose community is one of the plaintiffs, told the Detroit News – “We have some of the country’s worst roads. We’re one of the last areas in the nation without a working mass-transit system. And we’re at least $60 billion short of being able to maintain the infrastructure we already have.”
How widespread are conflicts like Detroit’s? Have many MPOs dealt well with the representation issue — and if so, how? Please comment and share insights and information you may have on MPO membership issues.