Climate Planning and Implementation in Metropolitan Transportation Governance

Even with expected changes in fuel, transportation will produce significant greenhouse gas emissions long into the future. We conduct the first evaluation of the performance of metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) in planning and implementing strategies for emission reduction. By coding regional transportation plans in three U.S. states, we find a reasonably high level of plan conformance: MPOs that express commitment to climate change mitigation channel more funding toward projects that reduce emissions. However, most MPOs have not started planning to address climate change, leading us to conclude that current practice has not redirected MPOs' traditional emphasis on automobile-based transportation.