Re: [CTPP] Urban Areas from Census

Bill Moore wrote: let me take a shot at this but first i need to sort out a few terms. let's call the 3C area the boundary that an MPO does its planning for--the MPO planning boundary. In terms of rules and process, the MPO planning boundary is set at the discretion of the locals and the governor, not by rule or regulation. If I recall the guidance that was put out on this after ISTEA it said something about including the Census defined Urbanized area and the contiguous area expected to become urban in the next 20 years--but the precise boundary is a local/state decision. Other boundaries of relevance (or confusion) worth considering in setting the MPO boundary. The non-attainment boundary if you are a non-attainment area for air quality. I believe we are all hanging on the EPA and some residual court cases for the new boundaries to be issues. Someone else might be able to help here. Another boundary in the mix of things is the Census Defined Urbanized Area boundary. This is the the boundary that the Census Bureau Defines that identifies the Urbanized population for figuring out things like what areas are and are not MPOs and TMAs. It is this boundary which the Census promises to have defined by the spring of 2002, and the one that they put out the proposed rules on how they would calculate it this past March. See http://www.census.gov/geo/www/ua/ua_2k.html for some more detail. Also, it will take a whole separate discussion to get into what is the status of the criteria and a potential re-release of the proposed criteria. Suffice it to say that the Urbanized area boundary will be defined by Census in spring of 2002. (Typically, the Census Urbanized area is smaller that the MPO planning area.) Another boundary that has all but disappeared is know as the Federal Aid Adjusted Urbanized Boundary. Us old guys know it as the boundary where we got to adjust the Census Urbanized boundary to smooth it out, bring in major trip attractors, and bring in areas thought to be urban, etc. There currently are discussions underway within DOT to eliminate the notion of this boundary and many believe that the highway program funding changes of ISTEA and later in TEA21 diminished the need for this level of defined geography. (more on this latter too.) So, to answer Bill's question after next Spring when the Census defines the Urbanized Area Boundary regions will have the starting geography from which to proceed. However, this will only tell you what you population will be for MPO designation and of course the area. As to what your entire MPO planning boundary ought to be I would imagine that it should be worked out locally with the state and FHWA division folks. -- Ed Christopher Bureau of Transportation Statistics U.S. Department of Transportation 400 Seventh Street SW Washington DC 20590 202-366-0412