If I could describe the American transportation industry in one word, it would be planning. Americans actually plan a great deal of transportation infrastructure even when they build very little. We have 20-year plans, 4-year plans, even 1-year plans. The organizations that do much of this planning are the appropriately named and Congressionally mandated Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs). There are more than 400 of them nationwide.
Foreign observers and indeed most American voters tend to be blissfully unaware of these institutions, but they are an extraordinarily important feature of American transport policy. While there were some predecessors, American transportation planning has its origins in early 1960s federal transportation legislation conditioning federal financial support on transportation planning, using the timeless 3 C’s of planning: Continuing, Comprehensive, and Coordinated.
Is that what happened in Charlotte last month? Anyone interested in the difference between planning in theory and planning in practice should take note of the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization (CRTPO) Board meeting in May.
Continuing? The Board cancelled the largest transportation project in the state’s history despite approving its procurement in 2024 and approving it in transportation plans since 2014. Comprehensive? The same Board approved a Metropolitan Transportation Plan running to 2055 in March, and less than two months later it threw a wrench into regionwide transportation funding. Coordinated? The vote to cancel the I-77 South Express Lanes came about so abruptly that it wasn’t even on the meeting agenda.
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