Cape's MPO status rests with Blunt

~ A Metropolitan Planning Organization would give local governments a greater voice in transportation planning.

The greater Cape Girardeau area could have its own federally funded metropolitan planning organization by next year if Gov. Matt Blunt approves it, officials said Monday.

Congressional subcommittee staff this fall concluded that the Cape Girardeau-Jackson-Scott City area would meet the population and density requirements for such a designation.

The move would enable the region to secure federal funds for transportation planning and give local governments a greater voice in setting priorities for transportation improvements, local officials said.

It also might lead to increased federal funding for road and public transit improvements in the region, officials said.

In addition to road planning, the MPO's policy board would decide how federal transit money should be allocated to transit services in its area, said Shirley Tarwater, transportation operations specialist with the Missouri Department of Transportation.

An MPO, Tarwater said, would allow the region to have more control and local coordination of transit services.

It would create another layer of local government to help coordinate transportation improvements for the region. City and county officials would serve on a policy-making board which would help plan how federal transportation dollars should be spent.

U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay of St. Louis, who serves on the census subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee, announced the staff's finding in a letter to Cape Girardeau Mayor Jay Knudtson last month.

In his Oct. 21 letter, Clay called it a "positive step" toward economic development for the region.

City officials received the letter at city hall on Oct. 28, but said little about it until Monday.

City planner Kent Bratton mentioned the news briefly at the conclusion of last week's planning and zoning commission meeting.

Knudtson said Monday that local officials plan to meet Tuesday to discuss the next step in trying to organize an MPO.

The proposed MPO would involve the cities of Cape Girardeau, Jackson and Scott City as well as Cape Girardeau County.

It would be the eighth MPO in the state. Three -- St. Louis, Kansas City and Springfield -- are what state transportation officials call upper echelon MPOs that each have an urban population of more than 200,000.

The MPOs in St. Joseph, Columbia, Jefferson City and Joplin qualify because each of those urban areas meets or exceeds the 50,000 population threshold.

Cape Girardeau, Jackson and Scott City had a combined population of 51,887 in the 2000 census. But the Census Bureau concluded in 2002 that the area didn't have sufficient population density to garner metropolitan planning organization status.

Local officials said that ruling resulted from the fact that no one lives in the flood plain between Cape Girardeau and Scott City, or in the county parks and the Cape Girardeau Memorial Park Cemetery situated between Cape Girardeau and Jackson.

The Cape Girardeau Area Magnet industrial recruitment association hired a St. Louis area transportation consultant to argue the cities' case with federal officials.

Mitch Robinson, executive director of the Magnet group, said consultant Lonnie Haefner successfully argued that the uninhabitable areas shouldn't count toward the population density requirement.

"This is very good news," said Robinson, adding that local officials have been pushing for MPO status for the region for several years.

"We still have to get the governor to approve it," he said. But Robinson said he's optimistic that will happen.

Missouri Department of Transportation officials said the MPO and local governments still would have to partner with the state agency regarding major transportation projects.

"We cannot force them to do something and they can't force us to do something," said Cheryl Ball, MoDOT assistant district engineer in Sikeston.

But a transportation project couldn't receive federal funding in the greater Cape Girardeau region unless it was on the MPO's list of projects, she said.

"It really encourages cooperation," Ball said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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