The federal government requires the DCHC MPO to adopt a long-range transportation plan at least every four years that identifies the highway, public transportation, bicycle, pedestrian and other transportation projects that the region plans to implement over the next thirty years.  The Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP) has to be based on the future land use plans and policies of the jurisdictions and counties in the MPO’s planning area, and must be fiscally-constrained, which means that the project costs have to be covered by the expected available revenues. As a practical matter, the MTP is important because the MPO requires that projects that are submitted to the NCDOT prioritization process for possible state or federal funding must come from the MTP, and regulations require that all federally-funded projects must be in the MTP. The projects and MTP must support the DCHC MPO’s adopted goals and objectives.  In addition, local governments may use the MTP to reserve or dedicate right-of-way for future highway and rail transit projects.

The series of tabs on the MTP Web pages present the process, documents and maps used to develop those MTPs. The tabs/process are in chronological order, starting with the goals and ending with the adopted plan.