Chasing TIGER: Federal Funding Opportunities and Regional Transportation Planning

Abstract

Many challenges make it difficult to achieve the collaborative metropolitan transportation planning ideals articulated in federal policy. A central challenge is that metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) are responsible for identifying and prioritizing region-serving investments, but numerous transportation agencies and local governments typically implement projects and hold the purse strings. New, less restricted sources of funding could exacerbate these challenges, and so we examine the role of MPOs and their plans in local decisions to pursue project funding from the federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program. Based on a national survey of MPOs, we find that the local selection of TIGER projects aligns with the federal emphasis on shovel-readiness, but that this criterion still allowed significant latitude for additional factors to shape local project selection. Despite competing factors and limits to regional planning, MPO planning and documents still played a substantial role in the local selection of TIGER projects.

Keywords

metropolitan planning organizations regional planning federal funding transportation

Introduction

For more than 50 years, federal law has required continuing, comprehensive, and cooperative (3-c) transportation planning at the metropolitan scale, and widespread consensus exists on the need for such regional coordination of transportation investments. In urbanized areas in the United States, metropolitan planning organizations (MPO) are responsible for planning and prioritizing transportation investments across their region, where state, local, and county governments and authorities all play influential roles in transportation. However, MPOs possess highly uneven staff and technical capacities, often face countervailing parochial interests of board members, and exist in a dense intergovernmental context with fragmented and constrained transportation funding. They must issue fiscally constrained investment plans, even though individual agencies and state or local governments (not MPOs) typically control the funds to pay for and implement projects in plans.

The availability of new transportation funding not included in the MPO regional planning process opens the door for individual agencies or local governments to seek those funds for projects of their own choosing, without regard to regional priorities. Local officials and other stakeholders may act strategically to advance favored projects and secure federal funds. Because it is typically unconnected to the established sources that MPO plans anticipate, new funding—whether from local option taxes, congressional earmarks, or new state or federal initiatives—could address unmet regional needs or demonstrate the limits to regional planning and the role of political maneuvering. For this reason, we focus on a newly created federal program, introduced below, which was especially useful for our analysis because its flexibility with respect to eligible project modes and scope, sponsors, and transportation priorities created an unusually open and unexpected opportunity.

We consider local choices to pursue the new funding opportunities through the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program. Originally as part of federal government stimulus to boost the U.S. economy during the Great Recession, the program emphasized awarding and spending funds quickly. The TIGER program offered funds to a wide field of eligible applicants, including municipalities, transit agencies, state departments of transportation, and MPOs, and for a variety of transportation projects without requiring candidate projects to have been previously included in already approved regional plans. Generally, federal funds may support project expenditures in U.S. metropolitan regions only if the project appears in an approved long-range transportation plan, signifying regional consensus that the project is needed and important. Consequently, TIGER presented local governments and other stakeholders an opportunity to pursue project funds outside of MPO planning. Funding could be provisionally awarded without prior MPO vetting, and the MPO plan later updated to include the project. For this reason, the program provided an important opportunity to study the role of MPOs when project sponsors could seek funding without MPO involvement and regional planning. We examine local activity within metropolitan regions to identify candidate projects for federal evaluation in the TIGER program; these local choices create the pool of candidates from which the United States Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) awards project funding.

What role did MPOs and their plans play when this new and broad federal funding source became available? In principle, MPOs’ regional plans and programs should reflect shared regional priorities and be an obvious source of near-shovel-ready projects. Yet, given the challenges MPOs face and the potential for stakeholders to advance favored projects independently, we anticipate other factors may sideline regional plans and MPOs. We surveyed MPOs and found that the federal criterion of shovel-readiness was the primary factor driving local selection of TIGER candidate projects. Yet, in the large discretionary space that the program guidelines permitted, MPOs and their plans—amid other factors—played a substantial role in local choices of projects for TIGER applications. A notable majority of proposed projects were in MPO documents, although many were not part of fiscally constrained long-range plans.

While recognizing limits to MPOs and their plans, we interpret these results as revealing that MPO-led regional planning played a meaningful role, even among a crowded intergovernmental arena. This is an encouraging finding for participants in the federally mandated regional transportation planning process and others seeking improved regional coordination. Our findings also indicate more MPO involvement in TIGER applications where MPO organizational capacity was higher, and so we suggest that building MPO capacity may strengthen the regional arena.

Regional Transportation Planning

Multi-jurisdictional transportation planning became a federal requirement more than 50 years ago, when the 1962 Highway Bill made expenditure of federal transportation funds contingent on the existence of continuing, comprehensive, and cooperative metropolitan planning (Zoller & Capizzano, 1997). In the early 1970s, further legislation required that states designate MPOs as the agencies responsible for these activities (Solof, 1998), and that MPO boards be comprised of local elected officials in the metro region. Any urbanized area with a population greater than 50,000 must form an MPO, and those MPOs serving areas with populations more than 200,000 have additional planning responsibilities.

MPOs have multiple core functions, including convening stakeholders, involving the public, and creating long-range and near-term plans (Federal Highway Administration [FHWA] & Federal Transit Administration [FTA], 2007, p. 4). Other government entities have historically led transportation project implementation, however. MPO long-range transportation plans articulate a vision for the regional transportation system over a 20-year time horizon and identify key investments needed over this period. The near-term transportation improvement program (TIP), like a capital program, identifies those projects that will be undertaken over the next 4 years (FHWA & FTA, 2007). Projects in the TIP are generally in more mature phases of project planning and, hence, closer to implementation than are those listed only in the long-range plan. To be eligible for federal transportation dollars, major projects must appear in these plans, and the MPO board must approve the plans. While some MPOs have used this requirement as leverage with local stakeholders who would insert parochial projects into the region’s plan or TIP, MPOs usually add projects to official plans when federal funds are allocated to a project (Sciara, 2012).

Both the long-range plan and the TIP must be fiscally constrained, meaning that the estimated cost for projects each contains must not exceed reasonable estimates of future funds. Some credit fiscal constraint with increasing the legitimacy of MPO planning (Goldman & Deakin, 2000; Sciara & Wachs, 2007). Many MPOs identify additional projects in long-range plan addendums as “illustrative” projects that, while needed, do not have funding sources identified and could be implemented should funding become available.

A large body of literature raises questions about the extent to which the metropolitan process can produce a meaningful plan. Cooperative efforts are considered essential for urban regions, where no single agency bears responsibility for the entire transportation system. It is also acknowledged that MPOs operate in a challenging and fragmented intergovernmental environment (FHWA & FTA, 2007, p. 6). The MPO process presents a clear institutional collective action problem (Feiock, 2013). To develop a regional long-range transportation plan and TIP for using resources, individual local governments will weigh the costs and benefits of collaborating to the jurisdiction they serve. Decisions may do more to serve the interests of individual MPO members or to balance competing geopolitical interests across the region than to maximize regional efficiency and mobility (Wachs & Dill, 1999). For example, among the country’s largest MPOs, TIP projects deemed regional in geographic scope accounted for less than one third of all projects in one study (Gerber & Gibson, 2009).

The literature observes a central MPO weakness—the generally limited control that MPOs exercise over most transportation funds (Lowe, 2014; Sciara, 2017). In 2011, local governments generated US$73 billion of own source revenue and received US$11 billion of federal funds for highway and transit, but it is states, usually through their departments of transportation, that control the largest share of transportation funds. States’ own source revenue accounted for US$80 billion in highway and transit spending in 2011, and most federal funds (US$46 billion of US$58 billion) flow through states (The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2014) and are under state control. The 1991 federal transportation law first allowed large MPOs to program some flexible Surface Transportation Program funds, one of a myriad of federal surface transportation funding programs. More recently, 2015’s Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act renamed the program the Surface Transportation Block Grant Program (STBG) and directs states to suballocate an increasing share to MPOs, from 50% up to 55% in fiscal year (FY) 2020. Federal legislation also allows some MPOs a role in the distribution of Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) dollars. Still, states initially receive funds for both programs, which combined are not a major share of federal transportation dollars; during the FAST Act authorization period, the STBG program averages US$11.7 million annually and CMAQ US$2.4 million annually. Thus, state departments of transportation, transit agencies, special authorities, and local governments in the region retain their grip on most purse strings.

State-level arrangements can send additional funds to an MPO; where this occurs, regional planning participants may be more satisfied with the MPO’s ability to meet long-term regional transportation needs (Goetz, Dempsey, & Larson, 2002). Still, the federal framework—for fiscal constraint on one hand and limited control over funding on the other—creates a fiscal paradox for MPOs; they must produce realistic budgets for overall plans and spending programs but have limited influence over individual expenditure items that a wide range of transportation agencies control (Lowe, 2014).

Additional challenges many MPOs face include little financial support for metropolitan planning activities; shifting federal regulations that have diminished then bolstered the MPO role, as happened, respectively, in the 1980s and 1990s; ambivalence from transportation agencies, particularly state DOTs, regarding MPO authority; local government resistance to MPOs’ role in regional project selection; and highly uneven staffing capacity (Goldman & Deakin, 2000; McDowell, 1999 U.S. Government Accountability Office [U.S. GAO], 2009). Many MPOs are housed in regional councils of government and exercise weak influence. These councils rely on “soft regionalism” methods, such as facilitation, attention-raising, and coordination, as “they exist in dense intergovernmental settings where the federal, state and local partners have historically played far stronger roles” (Bryan & Wolf, 2010, p. 114). Wolf and Farquhar (2005) suggest this institutional context blunts MPOs’ efficacy, and others question whether MPOs actually lead area-wide transportation planning or whether MPO-prepared investment plans, or TIPs, simply confirm the independent activities of individual governments and agencies (Innes & Gruber, 2005; McDowell, 1986). These hurdles aside, some case-based evidence suggests that participants in MPO-led planning still rate the process moderately favorably (Goetz et al., 2002).

Some regional plans expand beyond transportation infrastructure and incorporate land-use transformations. Such plans typically have even weaker enforcement mechanisms than MPO plans, as land-use change depends on voluntary zoning changes by local governments, as well as on investments by the real estate industry. Knaap and Lewis (2011) observe that voluntary regional plans have yielded limited results. An evaluation of the Sacramento region’s Blueprint plan reveals that housing constructed postplan diverged visibly from the collaboratively developed regional growth principles stressing mixed-use, compact development, and transportation choice (Allred & Chakraborty, 2015). More generally, in California, Senate Bill 375 of 2008 gives MPOs responsibility for integrating land-use and transportation planning to meet California’s greenhouse gas reduction targets. Yet, as MPOs lack land-use authority, the policy “produces a mismatch between authority and responsibility, expecting more from MPOs than they can easily achieve” (Barbour & Deakin, 2012, p. 83).

A potentially more optimistic stream of research sheds light on the environmental and organizational conditions likely to enhance MPO planning and outcomes. For instance, prospects for collaborative MPO planning may be greater in regions where underlying local jurisdictions are more alike than different from one another in terms of political preferences, socioeconomic conditions, size, and growth patterns (Gerber, Henry, & Lubell, 2013) and where there are few competing demands on stakeholders to attend to collaborative processes on other issues, such as water management or land conservation (Lubell, Henry, & McCoy, 2010). Furthermore, MPOs may be more likely to produce regionally oriented decisions when nonelected public managers dominate the board (Gerber & Gibson, 2009). Resources, staff capacity, and effective leadership devoted to collaborative planning also matter, as does aggressive public involvement (Deyle & Wiedenman, 2014; Goetz et al., 2002).

Genesis of a New Funding Source

During the Great Recession, policymakers sought ways to encourage and speed economic recovery. In 2009, the U.S. Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), an economic “stimulus” bill that included US$48 billion for transportation. Most ARRA funding was allocated along the preexisting formulae that govern the distribution of federal transportation dollars among states and urbanized areas, but the bill also allocated US$1.5 billion for a new competitive, discretionary fund. The U.S. DOT created the TIGER program to award those discretionary dollars. While initially authorized for one award cycle as part of the stimulus, Congress has continued to make competitive funds available, and U.S. DOT has funded 421 TIGER projects with around US$ 5.1 billion (US$1.5 billion the first year, US$600 million the second, US$527 million the third, US$500 million the fourth, US$474 for the fifth, US$600 million the sixth, and US$500 million the seventh, $500 million the eighth (U.S. DOT, 2017).

As noted above, the TIGER program is useful for our analysis because it was new, flexible (in project mode and scope, sponsor type, and transportation priorities), and allowed projects outside of MPO documents. Local sponsors could request from US$20 million to US$300 million for projects including but not limited to highways and bridges, public transportation, passenger and freight rail, and port facilities (U.S. DOT, 2009). Eligible applicants included local and state governments, transit and port authorities, and other subdivisions of state and local governments, including MPOs, the last a clarification added after the interim notice of funding availability (U.S. DOT, 2009). Most important, TIGER awards could be made to projects regardless of whether a candidate project had already been identified as regional priority in the long-range planning process (even though it must later be added).

Congressional direction in ARRA called for grant awards to prioritize quick start or so-called “shovel ready” projects. Consequently, the primary official federal criteria for evaluating TIGER applications were a project’s potential for job creation and economic stimulus and for long-term outcomes aligned with existing transportation goals.¹ Under the TIGER program guidelines, a project’s inclusion in regional, local, or state plans was only one of six factors that could indicate its readiness for a quick start (U.S. DOT, 2009). The guidelines noted that significant metropolitan-based projects must appear in long-range plans to receive federal funding, but they also allowed project sponsors to seek TIGER awards for projects not yet in fiscally constrained MPO documents (TIGER funds would not be disbursed to such projects until they were added to an amended plan).

To select TIGER grantees, U.S. DOT ran a competitive process, with defined evaluation criteria, and required benefit analyses, aligning with a rational technical planning paradigm. In 2009, U.S. DOT evaluated approximately 1,450 TIGER applications, identified a smaller pool of 166 finalist projects, and then proposed 51 project awards. Despite the formal evaluation process, the extent to which TIGER awards actually reflect the evaluation criteria has been questioned (U.S. GAO, 2011, 2014). One study found no statistically significant difference in evaluation ratings between funded and unfunded projects among the finalist pool (Homan, Adams, & Marach, 2014), a finding that suggests strategic behavior by project supporters, not technical criteria reflecting national priorities, may have been at play.

Strategic Behavior and Federal Funding

In addition to the funding challenges MPOs face, the literature on strategic behavior by local stakeholders lends cause for further skepticism regarding the role regional planning documents will play in local entities’ choices of which projects to advance in applications for new, flexible federal funding. The 3-c MPO process for planning long-term investment needs and prioritizing near-term implementation priorities involves constructs and tools of rational technical decision making (FHWA & FTA, 2007). However, local politicians shape whether and how project concepts are implemented, as observed in the case of a rail line in Los Angeles (Taylor, Kim, & Gahbauer, 2009).

Indeed, politicians often play central roles in the implementation of large infrastructure projects, as these projects typically involve a complex set of funding sources, secured through sustained political efforts by multiple stakeholders. In their case studies of mega-projects, Altshuler and Luberoff (2003) find that business leadership almost always was pivotal for project implementation, but that sustained public-sector leadership also was vital in moving projects from concepts to construction and securing the necessary federal funds to do so. Given the central role of local advocacy in the allocation of federal funds, Altshuler and Luberoff contend that local support, not national criteria, drives federal mega-project spending, a phenomenon that they label bottom-up federalism: “Though often funded in large part by the federal government, urban mega-projects almost invariably originated and drew their main constituency support locally, with little if any regard for national purposes” (pp. 220-221). They suggest that although federal programs that funded mega-projects had guidelines, “these were quite flexible . . . and were weakly enforced” (pp. 234-235).

The inaccuracy of technical analysis supporting project development may further weaken the likelihood that projects support national objectives. Mounting evidence suggests that planners have a hand in the production of strategically optimistic travel demand, cost, and revenue forecasts; these encourage approval of projects for which the ultimate costs exceed estimates and expected benefits fail to materialize (Flyvbjerg, 2005; Flyvbjerg, Holm, & Buhl, 2002; Pickrell, 1992). Furthermore, Chen (2007) argues that errors in rail project forecasts stem from federal program design in which the local sponsors have more information than federal actors and can act in ways that serve local interests, rather than those of the federal funding agency.

The literatures documenting MPO challenges, strategic stakeholder behavior, and inaccurate forecasting demonstrate that MPO documents are not products of the wholly rational, technical, regional process that federal mandates describe. Such plans are still the closest representation of regional consensus around priorities that exists, however. Will actors in the local region follow such federally mandated plans or work outside of them to pursue federal funds when a new, broad funding opportunity arises? We examine local choices on which projects to pursue in the exceptionally broad federal TIGER program. Most of the work examining the tensions around planning and strategic behavior to advance projects has adopted a case study approach. In contrast, our survey approach also gives insight into MPOs and their planning documents nationally.

We study the role that U.S. MPOs and their plans played in local choices to pursue TIGER funds. Whereas other analysis has focused on the U.S. DOT award selection process (Homan et al., 2014), we examine the critical preceding phase in which local sponsors nominated projects that would compose the federal evaluation pool and, hence, shape final outcomes. New transportation funding that lies outside MPOs’ sphere of influence, such as local option taxes (Goldman & Wachs, 2003), regional mobility authority revenues ((Sciara & Wachs, 2007), or Congressional earmarks (Sciara, 2012), can allow local governments or individual agencies to advance projects that sidestep regional planning; in such instances, strategic behavior by project champions may likewise mean agencies work outside of the regional process.

Unlike most transportation funds, TIGER program dollars could be used across a number of agencies and modes. The program’s relatively wide-ranging eligibility criteria led us to form competing expectations about the role of MPOs and their plans in the local selection of projects. In principle, an MPO’s TIP projects should be the most shovel-ready of all planned regional projects and its long-range plans should reflect regional priorities. In practice, we see potential for sponsors to seek funds for projects outside TIPs and long-range plans. Program design would not preclude such strategic behavior by local actors to secure infrastructure. Still, given the convening role expected for MPOs, the presumed readiness of projects in their fiscally constrained documents, and planning mandates, we anticipate that MPOs and their plans should play a role in the selection of and support for TIGER applications.

Method

To understand the role played by MPOs and their transportation plans in the pursuit of TIGER funds, we administered a survey to all 385 MPOs in the United States in June 2014. We selected MPOs as the appropriate respondents because we sought to focus on these regional institutions and their plans and because MPOs exist across all large metropolitan areas, making for more comparable respondents relative to other agencies, the boundaries and structures of which vary by region.

The survey included six closed-ended questions about the TIGER I (2009) process. It asked about the MPO’s role in TIGER applications, which local governments or agencies sponsored TIGER applications within the region, priorities in the local selection of TIGER applicant projects, and whether there were multiple projects considered in the region. In cases where multiple projects were considered, the instrument asked one open-ended question on how candidate projects were chosen when multiple TIGER candidate projects existed in a region. A simple categorization of responses through inductive coding was possible for this question, in part because of a low response rate. The survey also asked two closed-ended questions about TIGER processes since 2009, specifically MPO roles and critical factors in local selection of projects for TIGER applications. In addition, the instrument collected basic information about the responding MPO (e.g., subnational region, urbanized area population, staff size).

We first sent invitations to participants via postal mail, informing them of the forthcoming survey. Invitations were sent to specific staff members, primarily executive directors or senior transportation planners depending on MPO size and structure; they were identified through MPO websites. After the hard copy invitation, we sent an e-mail invitation with the active survey link, and followed up with two reminder e-mails during the following 2 weeks. After 2.5 weeks, we sent a reminder postcard with an extended deadline for those who had not yet responded and finally sent a reminder e-mail just under a month after the first invitation. Only those respondents that substantially completed TIGER-related questions were used in this analysis (n = 128) for an effective response rate of 33%. As the data below reflect, some respondents did not answer every question, and some questions allowed multiple responses. Thus, there is a variable number of responses by question.

Responding MPOs represented a mix of organizations in terms of staff size, urbanized area populations, and national subregional, the last as Table 1 displays. Approximately half (n = 61) of responding MPOs serve urbanized areas with fewer than 200,000 residents, the smallest number (n = 21) serve the largest metro areas (greater than 1 million population), and 40 serve urbanized areas with a population between 200,000 and 999,999 people. Consistent with the literature (Bond, Kramer, & Seggerman, 2010), we found considerable variation in the staff size of responding MPOs. Among the respondents serving areas of more than 1 million, staff size averaged about 62, for medium metros about 8, and for small metros about 3. Across respondents providing staff information (n = 108), the median and mean staff size were 4 and 14, respectively.

Table 1.

Respondents by Subnational Region (n = 123).

U.S. region	n
Midwest
East North Central	18
West North Central	12
Northeast
Middle Atlantic	11
New England	6
South
East South Central	13
Atlantic	23
West South Central	21
West
Mountain	9
Pacific	10

Findings

Roles for and Sponsors of TIGER Applications

A key finding of our survey is that most responding MPOs played at least some role in TIGER applications, despite the ability of agencies to independently apply for TIGER funds (Table 2). In the first round of TIGER funding (2009), MPOs involved in TIGER applications commonly supplied data (n = 34) or formally advised project sponsors (n = 29). A fair number also served as project sponsors or co-sponsors themselves (n = 26). Four responding MPOs reported “Other” forms of involvement, such as writing letters of support for or providing an MPO board endorsement for a project. Similarly, in the subsequent rounds, MPOs reported substantial involvement via co/sponsorship (n = 29), formal and informal advising (n = 53), and providing data (26). At the same time, however, around one third of MPOs reported no involvement in TIGER applications both in 2009 and subsequent time periods (n = 47 and n = 42, respectively).

Table 2.

MPO Roles in TIGER Applications.

MPO role in TIGER application	2009 (count)	2010-2014 (count)
Sponsor/cosponsor	26	29
Formally advised	29	30
Informally advised	18	23
Application used MPO data	34	26
Observed process	11	11
Other	4	4
Not involved	47	42
Total responses	169	165

Note. MPO = Metropolitan Planning Organization; TIGER = Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery.

Staff capacity appears to be an important starting condition allowing some types of MPO involvement, confirming previous work showing MPO capacity matters for collaborative planning (Deyle & Wiedenman, 2014). We examined the relationship between MPO staff size and MPO involvement for three roles in 2009 TIGER applications (sponsorship, data provision, and noninvolvement). As shown in Table 3, the mean staff size of those MPOs “not involved” in TIGER applications was significantly smaller than those indicating some involvement. In addition, MPOs that supplied data for applications had a significantly larger mean staff size than MPOs that did not indicate that their data had been used. Interestingly, the difference in mean staff size was not statistically significant for whether MPOs sponsored a project application.

Table 3.

Mean Staff Size for MPOs Adopting Selected Roles in TIGER I (2009).

	Mean staff size
Role in TIGER application	Yes	Not indicated
Sponsor/cosponsor	17.6	10.0
Application used MPO data^a	18.2	7.8
Not involved^b	5.0	19.8

Note. MPO = Metropolitan Planning Organization; TIGER = Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery.

Statistically significant at the 90% confidence interval.

Statistically significant at the 95% confidence interval.

Our survey also included questions about TIGER application sponsorship within the region, regardless of MPO involvement. Municipalities (n = 51) were the most frequent local sponsors pursuing TIGER awards, while MPOs (n = 32), counties (n = 32), and state DOTs (n = 29) followed. We note with some surprise that MPOs served as project sponsors about as frequently as state DOTs, even though MPOs historically are far less involved in project implementation. Transit agencies were also frequent project sponsors (n = 17), and port agencies (n = 5) were the most common entities reported as “Other” sponsor types.

Local Selection of Projects for TIGER Applications

Our findings show that numerous potential applications never made it to the federal evaluation pool, indicating the influence of local screening on federal agencies’ ultimate choices. Approximately one fifth of respondents (n = 24) reported that some projects had been considered for 2009 TIGER applications but had not been pursued by metro stakeholders. Respondents from larger urbanized areas (population of 1 million or more) more frequently reported (38%) that additional projects had been considered but not pursued relative to MPOs from medium-sized (25%) or small (12%) urbanized areas.

Seventeen MPOs noted why potential projects did not advance to the federal evaluation pool. Three MPOs reported concerns about the ability to complete the application process, due either to limited staff capacity or the application’s rigor. Another three respondents noted potential projects were not sufficiently mature, and two mentioned a lack of local matching funds.

Respondents reported some cooperation behind limiting project applications from a region. In three regions, stakeholders agreed to a “regional consensus” behind a single, priority project application for the area. In contrast, one respondent reported less regional cooperation, by noting that although the TIGER opportunity had been “discussed at a Regional level . . . members decided to ‘go it alone’ and not do a regional coordinated process.”

Factors behind projects that were advanced in applications commonly reflected TIGER program goals, regional planning, and the literature on strategic behavior. The survey asked respondents to identify up to three factors that were most important in the local selection of projects for TIGER applications; respondents identified 1.3 factors on average. Respondents most frequently named shovel-readiness as a top factor (n = 40), aligning with the TIGER program’s goal of speeding economic recovery, yet priority in MPO plan was almost as frequently a top factor (n = 39). Other frequently reported factors varied, including elected officials (n = 28), federal evaluation criteria (n = 21), and business advocacy (n = 16). Business advocacy may have been underreported. In addition to those indicating business advocacy as a factor, four MPOs noting “other” advocacy efforts as a top factor specified advocates best classified as business interests or at least economic growth orientated (economic development support, home builders association, and downtown redevelopment). Despite some changes in program rules from the first round of TIGER, respondents reported similar rationales for local selection of projects in subsequent TIGER funding rounds (2010-2014), as seen in Figure 1. In both time periods, shovel-readiness was the most frequently reported rationale. Also, the second and third most frequently reported factors were consistently “Priority in MPO plan” and “Elected Officials.” Despite the competitive program’s formal evaluation and requirement for a cost-benefits analysis, cost-benefits analysis was a top factor only for 10 respondents. Transit advocacy and environmental advocacy were reported infrequently or not at all as a factor (9 and 0 times, respectively, for 2009).

Figure 1.

Frequency of reported top factors for local project selection in TIGER I and subsequent rounds.

We looked for but found no important patterns linking specific project sponsor types with particular key factors in project selection. Unsurprisingly, advocacy by transit interests was cited as a relatively frequent factor for transit agency-sponsored projects, and advocacy by business interests was a relatively frequent factor for the four projects sponsored by economic development agencies. However, across the other sponsor types, we did not observe notable differences among reported key factors, as seen in Table 4.

Table 4.

Key Factors by Project Sponsor (Other Category Omitted).

	Factors considered in TIGER candidate project selection
	Shovel-readiness	Priority in MPO plan	Business advocacy	Transit advocacy	Advocacy efforts-other	Cost-benefit analysis	Federal evaluation guidelines	Elected officials
Project sponsor	%								Count responses
MPO	24	29	9	8	3	1	9	16	80
Transit agency	18	15	5	18	8	5	13	10	40
State DOT	18	23	11	8	6	6	11	14	66
Municipality	18	23	9	5	7	5	13	14	111
County	17	19	8	6	4	1	17	22	72
Economic development organization	14	14	29	14	14	0	0	14	7
Other	23	15	4	12	4	8	8	8	26

Note. TIGER = Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery; MPO = Metropolitan Planning Organization; DOT = Department of Transportation.

Linkages Between Regional Planning Documents and TIGER Applications

That the majority of proposed 2009 TIGER projects appeared in MPO documents is another important finding. It suggests existing regional plans did figure in the choice of project candidates. Still, many TIGER candidates appeared in “illustrative projects” rather than in the more meaningful fiscally constrained long-range plans and TIPs.

Given that numerous agencies could seek TIGER funds independently, the survey asked whether TIGER projects had appeared in the MPO’s federally required and fiscally constrained near-term (TIP) or long-range plans, in the region’s unfunded or “illustrative projects” list, or in other MPO documents (see Table 5). Where TIGER projects were drawn from MPO documents, MPOs reported that such projects had appeared slightly more frequently in an unfunded, illustrative projects list associated with the long-range plan (n = 35) than in the long-range fiscally constrained plan itself (n = 33).² Further reflecting the visible influence of MPO planning on discretionary funding applications, 21 candidate TIGER projects were included in a near-term, financially constrained 4-year TIP, and five applicant projects were included in other MPO documents.

Table 5.

Project Inclusion in MPO Documents.

Fiscally constrained short-range plan (TIP)	21
Fiscally constrained long-range plan	33
Long-range plan unfunded projects/illustrative projects	35
Other	5
None of the above	18
Total responses	112

Note. MPO = Metropolitan Planning Organization; TIP = Transportation Improvement Program.

That the vast majority of projects were in regional planning documents suggests a palpable relationship between planning and funds seeking, but there were multiple exceptions. Eighteen MPOs (16% of responses) reported that TIGER applicant projects from their region had not previously appeared in any MPO document. Two of the five port-sponsored projects noted earlier were among those not appearing in an MPO document. Among MPOs reporting that projects were in no MPO document, the average staff size (5) was significantly smaller (at the 95% confidence level) than that (15.6) of other MPOs.

Discussion

Our MPO-based national study of factors driving applications for TIGER funds finds that no one factor wholly explains local selection of projects advanced for federal evaluation. Rather, federal criteria, elected officials, economic growth aspirations, and regional plans are all behind proposing projects for federal funding. The most commonly identified factor for project selection was shovel-readiness, the criterion most aligned with TIGER’s original impetus—economic stimulus. This emphasis on shovel-readiness still left substantial space for various local actors to pursue differing projects and priorities, because federal guidelines allowed for flexibility in sponsors, modes, and long-term outcomes. Thus, despite shovel-readiness as a top factor, the discretion allowed local actors suggests that TIGER continues the pattern of bottom-up federalism described by Altshuler and Luberoff (2003) in which local constituencies largely steer federal funds.

A wide range of stakeholders and factors shaped the local selection of projects for TIGER applications. Elected officials were the third most common factor in the local selection of TIGER projects. This reinforces Altshuler and Luberoff’s (2003) contention that public-sector leadership remains critical for project implementation, even when business support for a project is present. Business advocacy was more often a top factor than cost-benefit analysis and other types of advocacy. The local selection of TIGER projects is further complicated by the broad array of potential sponsors who could act independently to apply for TIGER funds. Interestingly, municipalities were the most commonly reported sponsor of TIGER applications.

Our results show that, even among a crowded field of stakeholders, potential sponsors, and multiple priorities, MPOs and the regional plans they craft have salient roles in the pursuit of TIGER funds. We find some role for MPO involvement across many regions, even though the level of MPO involvement frequently appears short of the regional planning ideal. One interpretation of these results would be to read MPO involvement in TIGER project selection as reflecting tactical behavior by project proponents; where proponents seek TIGER funds for projects outside MPO plans, an MPO endorsement could smooth the way for adding such projects to official MPOs plans, as is ultimately required for federal TIGER spending. We do not adopt this cynical view. Rather, previous research suggests project sponsors are likely aware that MPOs seldom decline to add a new project to their plans if newly available funds will pay for that project (Sciara, 2012). That most MPOs reported some role in TIGER applications—whether sponsoring, advising, or providing data for those applications—suggests MPOs’ visible influence in regional planning. Variation in MPO capacity tempers that influence, however; staff resources were significantly greater where MPO data were used in applications and significantly smaller where MPOs reported no involvement. More significantly, priority in the MPO plan was second among the top factors determining local project selection for TIGER applications.

In 94 instances, TIGER projects were included in MPO documents, most commonly in long-range unfunded project lists. That unfunded projects in long-range illustrative lists were commonly proposed TIGER projects (n = 35) could show the tension of MPO plans—there might not be funds available to build projects that would be collective priorities were funds not so tied to specific agencies and purposes.When respondents reported that projects did not appear in an MPO document, mean staff size was smaller than where projects did appear in an MPO document.

We acknowledge that inclusion and prioritization in an MPO plan does not always mean that a project best reflects a regional, rather than parochial, interest as determined by a rational planning process. Technical analysis can be politically motivated (Flyvbjerg, 2005; Flyvbjerg et al., 2002; Pickrell, 1992), and strategic behavior to advance projects surely exists in the process behind fiscally constrained plans. As evidenced by the literature, projects may reflect how agencies plan to spend their money apart from truly regional priorities, and MPO board members may prioritize their communities over the region. Yet, MPOs often provide a uniquely regional forum, critical coordination, and dialogue, even as they face constraints and a complex political and institutional landscape.

That the TIGER program allows projects outside fiscally constrained MPO documents reveals an apparent contradiction between the federal mandate for planning and the design of the program. We interpret this disconnect in the context of fragmented and insufficient regional transportation funding, however. Fiscally constrained regional plans are organized around specific funding programs; the expenditure of those programs’ funds largely is limited by eligibility restrictions and controlled by individual agencies, not by MPOs. Compared with traditional project funding sources, TIGER funds are highly flexible, eligible to be spent on a variety of projects, irrespective of travel mode. This very flexibility makes the TIGER program especially attractive to proponents of projects not easily funded through conventional sources. Thus, the choice to pursue TIGER funds for projects outside the fiscally constrained project list may say more about the unmet demand among project sponsors for flexible funding than about any one sponsor’s commitment to regional priorities.

This possibility raises questions about how underlying funding restrictions and control shape regional planning and project selection. It also suggests that the regional list of “illustrative [nonfunded] projects” may play an important but not well-understood role in shaping decisions when regions suddenly have new funding opportunities. Our findings show a significant MPO role. We interpret the 18 instances where projects were not in MPO documents as reflecting the realities of funding fragmentation and strategic political behavior, and we see MPO and their plans as highly relevant for the local selection of TIGER applicant projects.

Conclusion

If a region’s transportation systems are to be more than the sum of separate infrastructure investments prioritized by individual jurisdictions, agencies, and stakeholders, their MPO has a pivotal role to play as a forum for regional decision making. The 3-c vision underlying federal policy for U.S. metro regions calls for a cooperative, comprehensive, and continuing process to develop required long-range plans and near-term spending programs. Per federal mandates, MPO planning has important responsibilities for involving the public and weighing environmental justice in investment decisions, considerations that can easily be overlooked in an expedited ad hoc process such as TIGER I and that merit attention in future research. Regardless, MPOs face a challenging intergovernmental context and must create fiscally constrained plans, although they do not control most transportation funds. The TIGER program and its relatively unrestricted parameters provided a unique opportunity to observe whether local entities pursued federal funding in alignment with MPO planning and in cooperation with MPOs.

Despite the challenges MPOs face and the opportunism possible with the TIGER program, MPOs and their documents played substantial roles in the local pursuit of TIGER funds. Nationally, we found that most MPOs, especially those with greater staff capacity, played some role in TIGER applications. Given the reality that MPOs, like councils of governments, will continue to work through soft forms of regionalism, building capacity for MPOs to assist other transportation agencies (e.g., by providing data or advice) is one way to strengthen their influence and potentially enhance regionalism. Most TIGER projects had previously appeared in MPO documents, although not necessarily in a fiscally constrained plan.

At first glance, the provision to allow post hoc updates for funded projects seems to undermine the expectations around federally mandated planning. This inconsistency, however, may reflect less the undermining of MPO planning and more the reality of constrained and fragmented transportation funds. Illustrative lists include projects outside the fiscally constrained plans because current agency resources are not allocated for them. A new flexible funding source allowed for thinking outside of the delineated agencies and program funding pots, even as it did not reinforce MPO planning mandates.

Transportation professionals, therefore, ought to carefully consider the role of “illustrative projects” attached to their regional plans. The role of illustrative project lists is an area for future examination. They could serve as a consensus-building tool to promise individual stakeholders that they will get their project wishes later in time, or alternatively, as a selective holding area for genuinely region-serving projects without funding. MPOs could consider leveraging the inclusion of projects in the “illustrative projects” list to further regional goals.

Although shovel-readiness—a broad federal goal—was the most common factor behind the local selection of projects, priority in MPO plans was a close second. This suggests an influential role for MPO documents, but not necessarily that the proposed TIGER projects reflect a truly regional and rational technical planning process, given the literature discussed previously. Nonetheless, the importance of MPO plan priority shows that planning, like federal criteria, strategic opportunism, elected officials, and business advocacy, matters when agencies weigh which projects to enter into the federal evaluation pool. Of course, these factors and their interrelationships, as well as whether and how well regional plans elevate regional over parochial interests, merit further research. Here, our survey yields a broad national finding; local agency actions to pursue funds substantially align with mandated regional plans, a result that should encourage regionalists. Even amid political opportunism and fragmentation in planning and funding, MPOs and their mandated planning—a regional forum requiring intergovernmental coordination and dialogue—are important and influential in the bottom-up federalism exemplified by the TIGER program.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This article is supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, University Transportation Centers Program.

Notes

Author Biographies

Kate Lowe examines how varied stakeholders and transportation policies interact across different levels of government. She also studies the transportation perspectives and experiences of low-income populations.

Gian-Claudia Sciara researches and writes about transportation and land-use decision making in intergovernmental contexts, and regional institutions are a long-standing focus of her work.

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