Overview
Transportation is the key to connecting and moving people, goods and services. Whether it is getting to work by car, biking to the store, or moving freight, transportation is at the forefront of ensuring a high quality of life for the central Ohio region.
At MORPC, our transportation planning is responsive to the changing social, economic, environmental and demographic conditions of the central Ohio region. Some of the biggest transportation issues facing our region are congestion, maintaining mobility and growth in the region, balancing the need for travel with the quality of life in communities, providing accessible travel options, sustainable funding to maintain and expand our transportation system, and our environment.
About the Metropolitan Planning Organization
MORPC, in part, serves as the federally-designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Columbus and environs. MPOs are established in all urban areas of the U.S. that are over 50,000 population, to perform the “3-C” (continuing, comprehensive, and cooperative) transportation planning process. The 3-C planning process, which makes the area eligible to receive federal highway and transit funding, includes two major required products – a regional transportation plan, with at least a 20-year planning horizon, and a transportation improvement program, a shorter-term schedule of active projects. MORPC has been the designated entity to carryout the 3-C process in central Ohio since 1964, soon after the 3-C requirements were established in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1962 (and in other subsequent legislation).
As the MPO, MORPC is involved in a wide range of activities related to all forms of transportation – sidewalks and airports, rail and highways, and bicycles, trucks and public transit in the central Ohio region. MORPC’s metropolitan planning area (the MPO area) includes Delaware and Franklin counties, and portions of Fairfield and Licking counties. A neighboring MPO, the Licking County Area Transportation Study, is the MPO for the Newark area, and covers additional areas of central Ohio, to the east of Columbus.
