INCOG has been designated by the governor as the area’s Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO). MPOs maintain the primary responsibility for developing transportation plans and programs for urbanized areas of 50,000 or more residents. Federal regulations recognize metropolitan areas with a population of 200,000 or more as Transportation Management Areas (TMA), which places further requirements on the MPO for congestion management, air quality attainment, increasing safety, and other issues. All TMA transportation plans and programs are based on a continuous, coordinated, and comprehensive planning process, conducted in cooperation with local and state partners.
The purpose of the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) is to anticipate the transportation needs for the TMA predicated on demographic and economic assumptions and forecasts for the entire region. It identifies various elements of the desired transportation system for the metropolitan community and the interrelationship of various modes of transportation. To ensure financial feasibility, the RTP summarizes implementation costs and presents practicable funding scenarios while addressing the resulting effects of the investments on the social and natural environments. The RTP will serve as a guide for the investment of local, state and federal resources, and will become a component of the Oklahoma Statewide Intermodal Transportation Plan. In addition, the RTP meets the requirements of federal law authorizing the adoption of a regional transportation plan for the metropolitan planning area for the expenditure of federal transportation resources in the future.
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