This article investigates how concern about equity has arisen in the planning and implementation of high-occupancy/toll lane projects, or so-called “HOT lanes.” Specifically, the research assesses (1) where and how equity issues have surfaced in the debate over HOT lanes and (2) how practicing planners have responded to these equity concerns. By looking explicitly at the planning process through a series of case studies and a review of newspaper coverage, the research suggests strategies for how practitioners can craft a comprehensive and meaningful framework for assessing and addressing equity issues.

Problem, research strategy, and fi ndings: There are more than 400 U.S. metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) overseeing multiple transportation projects totaling billions of dollars, yet these crucial organizations and their history and current role are generally unknown or confusing to many planning practitioners and scholars. MPOs face major challenges in developing meaningful long-range regional transportation plans, challenges rooted in their history that planners should understand as they grapple with metropolitan planning efforts. MPOs may approve projects and their funding, but disparate agencies and often competitive local governments control budgets and actually build projects. MPOs, moreover, do not fully represent all regional interests and have no control over the local land use decisions that would support less autocentric communities and human-powered modes. I provide a metareview of the history of regional transportation planning and the MPOs responsible for it, describing U.S. metropolitan transportation planning from the early 20th century. Federal legislation in the 1960s fi rst suggested a regional forum for conversations about metropolitan transportation. Federal legislation in subsequent decades made incremental if incomplete progress toward creating a meaningful regional forum, adapting institutions and practices to increase stakeholder involvement as well as the scope of transport planning, yet MPOs have multiple limitations that planners can address. Takeaway for practice: History suggests that MPOs can be a force for regional change. Planners and policymakers could anchor future reforms to MPOs' existing legal and administrative frameworks. Planners should revisit the membership and voting structures Metropolitan Transportation Planning Lessons From the Past, Institutions for the Future Gian-Claudia Sciara of MPO boards to ensure better stakeholder representation and permit some MPOs to generate and direct transportation funds at the local level.

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Recent efforts to implement regional-level funding sources in Las Vegas, Nevada; California's San Francisco Bay Area; and the state of Texas indicate that some states and regions are responding to transportation needs with institutional innovations that could allow greater metropolitan-level involvement in transportation finance. In light of the waning revenue-generating capacity of federal and state transportation user fees—historically, the main source of U.S. transportation funds—this article discusses different models for providing metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) with revenue-generating authority, the conditions under which different models may be more or less attractive, and what characteristics may make some MPOs candidates for such innovation. Institutional and practical considerations are also examined. A view of current transportation finance and policy trends provides context for the discussion, as does an account of how MPOs and their transportation projects are funded today.