Increasing Funding and Accountability for Metropolitan Transportation Decisions

This chapter discusses the effect f the suballocation rule by analyzing spending patterns of state departments of transportation and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOS). Metropolitan areas, the authors contend, require greater control over the transportation spending so crucial to their dynamism. To support their case, the authors examine federal transportation policy since the end of the interstate highway era and they find that only a few federal efforts explicitly serve to strengthen and support metropolitan decision making. The authors highlight four specific programmatic elements of the federal law that increased the ability of metropolitan areas to make transportation decisions: suballocated Surface Transportation Program dollars; the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program; the Transportation Enhancements program; and metropolitan planning funds.